


devil town

by kingsoftheimpossible



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Non-Famous, Alternate Universe- Southern United States, Baseball, High School, M/M, Past Zayn Malik/Louis Tomlinson, Slow Build, Taxidermy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-04-13
Updated: 2016-04-10
Packaged: 2018-05-28 16:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 4
Words: 50,035
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6336850
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/kingsoftheimpossible/pseuds/kingsoftheimpossible
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>a southern us au</p><blockquote>
  <p>“Mmm,” Louis hums, tipping his head slightly in acknowledgement. “You know what I reckon all the baseball games you’ve seen have in common?”</p>
  <p>Harry rocks on his heels, uncertain, drifting. If it were daylight, if he could see Louis’ face, maybe he’d see where this was going. As it is, he hazards a guess, smiling beseechingly even though Louis probably can’t see him very well. “That I didn’t know what was going on?”</p>
  <p>“I reckon,” Louis says, taking the cigarette from his mouth and flicking the ashes to the ground, “you only ever paid attention to baseball when it involved paying attention to me.”</p>
</blockquote>
            </blockquote>





	1. summer

**Author's Note:**

> hello please be kind lmao.
> 
> thank u to everyone who helped me with this over the better part of the last year. especially my nailbeds and my gb, shan, jessi, and lane!! and to the Wonderful Oonicorn who did beautiful art!!!!!!!!!!!!!
> 
> a note: 
> 
> take the seasons with about a billion grains of salt. we don't have seasons in the south so i went with Feeling more than real time. any other questions can be directed toooo me on tumblr, i'm kingsoftheimpossible there too.

* * *

"Well, we are objects in a wind that stopped, is my view.

There are regular towns and irregular towns, there are wounded towns and sober towns and fiercely remembered towns, there are useless but passionate towns that battle on, there are towns where the snow slides from the roofs of the houses with such force that victims are killed, but there are no empty towns (just empty scholars) and there is no regret.

Now move along."

from  _Plainwater: Essays and Poetry_

by Anne Carson

* * *

 

There’s a bead of sweat resting in the dip of his spine, not rolling, not going anywhere, just resting. It’s that hot, that humid, even his sweat’s too lazy to move.

Louis presses his face harder into the pillow, just as tepid and damp as the rest of his room, as everything else in town. It’s oppressive, the heavy-hot-wet of everything, and he can’t catch his breath even when he’s just been lying in bed for hours.

A quick glance at his phone proves that it really has been hours. _3:32 am_ blinks up at him from the screen, and he muffles a groan in the crook of his elbow before hauling himself up and out of bed. He gets dressed by rote in the dark, knows this room like the back of his hand and then some. It’s been his for going on twenty years- couldn’t even stub a toe unless he was blackout drunk, not that that’s an impossibility.

The screen door creaks when he tiptoes out into the latenight-earlymorning haze, but he gentles it shut so it won’t alert the dog pen and send them howling the whole world awake. There’s not really a way to gentle his old truck running, but he tries anyway and shuts his eyes in relief when just a single curious, sleepy beagle lets out a half-hearted bay at the choking roar of the engine coming to life.

There’s only one place in town where the air is dusty-dry instead of humid: right in the middle of the baseball diamond, all that red clay stretching out on every side, sponging the water out of the air, out of his lungs, letting him breathe for a while.

Some things never change.

His mom used to say that about his dad, and it’d sounded fond, and she’d laugh when she said it. And then she kept saying it, and she didn’t really laugh. And then he wasn’t there to say it to or about anymore, so some things, probably, do change. Or they keep being the same, just somewhere else.

The grass-and-dirt field that makes up the parking lot of the Screaming Devil’s baseball compound is empty when Louis pulls in and that’s exactly how he wants it. It’s almost four in the morning, and even the cicadas are silent when he hooks his fingers into the chain link and pulls himself over the fence.

He doesn’t linger by the metal bleachers or the dugout, just makes a beeline for the pitcher’s mound.

Stepping onto the plate sends a rush of relief through him. He settles, closes his eyes, and takes a deep, deep breath.

* * *

 

Everyone keeps telling him that he’s got to live this year to the fullest.

There’s even a school assembly about it- the seniors get called down to the gym at the end of the first week of classes, and when they’re all spread out on the bleachers and chattering away, the principal gives them this kind of Look that Harry’s started seeing more and more of, and then she talks.

She seems set to talk all the way to the other side of forever, but the gist of it’s that time’s-a-wasting and apparently nothing will ever be good or fun or possible again if they don’t do it now, during this year, starting right at this exact moment, sitting in this sweltering gym even.

Because time’s moving that fast.

Cara’s braiding a few strands of Harry’s hair, but even that soft tickle can’t keep him from frowning down at the principal, at everything she’s saying. At everything every adult has been saying to him since his junior year ended with a bang of ecstasy and possibility last May.

He’s still frowning about it when school lets out three hours later, and he’s still frowning about it when he ties on his apron for work, and he’s still frowning about it when someone loudly clears their throat and snaps their fingers in front of his face since he’s been zoned out at the register for several minutes. He’s frowning about it when he closes up the bakery for the evening, swinging the keys lazily on one finger and strolling out to the parking lot, apron draped over one shoulder.

He only really stops frowning about it once he gets behind the wheel of his car, radio blaring and windows down. The only thing between him and living his life to its fullest is the red light he hits on the way home, but even that’s okay because he can sing as loud as he wants, wailing out over the dull engine-roar and the cicadas and the hot night-wind whistling through the trees.

A truck pulls up next to him, and Harry glances over curiously, wondering who else is out this time of night on a Wednesday in Buckhead.

It’s not that he’s surprised to see Louis Tomlinson, exactly. Harry’s seen him plenty throughout his life; it’s a small town. It’s just that no one’s seen Louis much since he graduated and dropped off the face of the earth two summers back.

_Live life to the fullest._

That’s exactly how Harry remembers Louis. Louis wouldn’t be pouting or having an existential crisis over someone telling him to live his life- because he’d already be _living it._

That’s probably why Harry hasn’t seen him around, actually. Too busy doing whatever it is people do after graduation when they aren’t sitting around telling Harry not to waste his time.

Harry briefly imagines turning his radio down, blaring his horn or yelling or something to get Louis’ attention. But that makes him feel a little silly, and a little transparent, and a little like he’s sixteen again, trailing after Louis and his group of friends with a crush so huge and obvious it’s hard to think about even with two years of distance.

So he doesn’t do anything, just drives home a little too fast, tearing around corners and revelling in the new-car engine wailing through the otherwise quiet night.

For as much as everyone’s warned Harry that senior year will be the hardest one yet, he hasn’t found much proof so far. Granted, it’s still August, but his class schedule is, putting it lightly, relaxed, and stating it plainly, laughable. He gets to sleep in until nearly 10 every morning, and then all he’s got is an AP literature class, an AP environmental science, and then yearbook, which isn’t a class so much as an extended lunch break. All those zero periods he’d taken in his first three years truly seem to be paying off at this point.

Still, it’s a little boring, almost. The free time seemed cool until he realized pretty much everyone he knows still has a fairly normal high school schedule. So he takes extra shifts at his mother’s bakery, telling himself he’ll set the money aside for a truly epic spring break.

It’s been a week since the night he saw Louis, and Harry’s mostly managed to put it out of his mind. Or he would have, maybe, if there was anything else to think about during the long dragging afternoons spent prepping dough and batter for the next morning.

So when the bell over the front door dings, Harry looks up expecting to see one of the little old ladies who come in to grab cookies for church functions. Instead, it’s Louis Tomlinson, backwards baseball cap and muddy shoes and jeans cut-off ragged at the knees. Harry blinks, mouth popping open, because until last Wednesday it’d been over a year since he’d last seen Louis, and now he’s seen him twice in as many weeks.

“Hi,” Harry says stupidly, and Louis’ head pops up from where he’d been checking his phone.

“Hey?” Louis says uncertainly, pushing his cap up off his forehead and then pulling it off entirely, leaving his hair standing up in about a thousand different directions. “I’m supposed to pick up some cupcakes for Jo-”

“Tomlinson,” Harry cuts in, already spinning away to grab the bagged up cupcakes from the back counter. His fingertips feel electric, pulse thrumming with the possibility of anything happening.

His life hanging open like an empty palm, ready to be filled, moved, changed.

When he turns back, bags in hand, Louis is frowning, squinting at him like he can’t quite place Harry’s face. There’s a streak of sunburn across the bridge of Louis’ nose and the tops of his cheeks, already starting to peel. Harry wonders if squinting like that stings, if the burn’s fresh enough to hurt. “Sorry, do I know you?”

Well. That’s not promising. Harry opens his mouth to respond, a little put out, but then Louis looks around, surprised, like he’s just remembered where he is. “Styles,” he says, face smoothing out, leaving little pale creases beside his eyes. Harry starts grinning immediately. Then he kind of stops when Louis finishes, “You’re Gemma Styles’ little brother.”

Okay, not technically inaccurate. Not Harry’s preferred method of being remembered, but not inaccurate. He keeps his grin firmly plastered on, determined to be charming enough for Louis to take note.

“We went to school together,” Harry points out. “We were both friends with-”

“Taylor,” Louis finishes, reluctant smile tugging at the corner of his mouth. “You’re the one that puked at her graduation party.”  
Harry’s face falls. Alright, off to a truly rocky start. That’s fine. He can rally. “I was on yearbook,” he says a little desperately, pulling out his trump card. “With Zayn.”

Louis’ expression shutters so quickly that Harry nearly can’t remember what it was like just a moment ago when he was smiling. “Do I owe you anything for the-?” Louis jerks his head to the bags on the counter between them, already reaching out to grab them.

“Um- no, your mom- um-”

Louis snatches the bags, not quite rudely, but Harry’s so wrong-footed he can’t actually be sure.

“Thanks,” Louis says quickly, backing away towards the door and giving an awkward salute with the two fingers he can free from the bags’ handles. “Good to see you.”

“Wait,” Harry calls, leaning over the counter so far he nearly tumbles right over. “Tell your mama I said hey!” God, smooth. Smooth, Styles.

Louis’ already out the door, climbing into his truck, and Harry can’t do much but watch through the shop window, feeling very, very confused.

“Alright,” he says to no one. The oven timer goes off in the kitchen so he goes to check it, frowning all the while.

* * *

The twins’ cheerleading practice is nearly done by the time Louis pulls into the elementary school lot. He spots the gaggle of girls outside the gym, stamping the ground and clapping slightly off-beat, but the twins break away as soon as they sight his truck pull up. He scoops up Daisy with one arm and Phoebe with the other, a bag of cupcakes in each hand.

“Cupcakes!” Daisy screams directly into his ear, and Louis winces away, only to have Phoebe do the same on his other side.

“Nope, no cupcakes here,” he says, matter-of-fact. “Just a couple bags of possum guts.”

“Guts!” the twins shriek, horrified, and he can’t help but laugh.

The cheerleading instructor, Ms. Watts, who was also Louis’ own P.E. teacher in elementary school, takes the bags from him as soon as he gets near enough, calling for the other girls to gather round. Louis sets the twins down, giving them the important task of handing out cupcakes to the rest of the squad, and steps back to watch the chaos erupt.

Ms. Watts lets out a long breath, putting her hands on her hips. “Tell your mama she’s a lifesaver,” she says, shaking her head. “Thought they were going to riot when I told them I’d forgotten to bring snacks today.”

Louis huffs, grimacing as he watches his sisters mash pink icing into each others hair. “You know she’s always happy to help.”

“You, too,” Ms. Watts says, giving him a look from the corner of her eye.

Louis shrugs mechanically, locking eyes carefully with the half-covered graffiti on the gym wall. “Well, you know,” he says vaguely, “not much else to do.”

Ms. Watts takes pity on him and calls the girls back to practice, everyone a bit stickier and more hyper than they’d been about ten minutes ago. Louis goes back to his truck, dropping the tailgate down and hopping up to wait out the rest of practice so he can take the girls home.

His phone buzzes about five minutes later, which is such an unusual occurrence these days that he startles, nearly falling off the tailgate entirely. His mind immediately jumps to the two worst possible conclusions. It’s his mother texting him to tell him someone’s died. Probably not; she’d just call. So if it’s not that, maybe it’s- it might be Zayn. But he knows that only really comes to mind because Harry Styles had brought him up out of nowhere and Louis’d been wholly unprepared for it. So probably not that either. Only one way to know for sure.

It’s a number he doesn’t recognize.

_You left something here._

Louis’ face scrunches up, staring down at the screen like the text will change to something that makes more sense. Nothing doing.

_where???_

There’s a long beat of nothing but the distant sounds of cheer practice, the heat of the afternoon mellowing into something less burning and more steady.

_The bakery_

Louis’ eyebrows shoot up.

_whos this ?_

He sends it even though he’s pretty sure he knows. A better question would probably be _how did you get this number_ , but he’s too surprised to ask.

_Gemma’s little brother:)_

Louis pushes his cap back a little off his sweaty hair, scratching absently at the back of his neck, completely taken aback. He has no idea what he could’ve left- he got the cupcakes, his keys are on the tailgate beside him, his hat is on his head.

_have to wait until my sisters are done with practice. bakeryll be closed by then_

Louis knows the bakery closes at six because everyone used to go after school to load up on the sweets that were half-price at the end of the day. He doesn’t remember Harry ever working there then, but he remembers Gemma standing behind the counter, rolling her eyes at the football players flirting with her. At Louis flirting with her, a bit, if he’s being honest.

_I can wait!_

Louis glances at the time. Another fifteen minutes of cheer practice. He considers telling Harry not to worry about it, but he’s curious, actually, and a little worried. It might be important. Maybe his mom paid for more cupcakes.

_be there in 20_

Louis fucks around on his phone for the next fifteen minutes, checking Instagram with the usual trepidation. He’s rewarded, as usual, with the triumphant pursuits of Literally Every Other Member Of His Graduating Class. Taylor’s in Nashville, surprising literally no one. Stan’s in Cumming, overseeing Rush Week for his fraternity. Zayn’s in California, posting works in progress and hazy smoke-filled selfies that fill Louis with equal parts jealousy and nostalgia. He closes out of Instagram and deletes the app for the fifth time in the past month.

Before he can sink into too deep a malaise, he hears his sisters come running up, attaching themselves to his dangling legs and rubbing their frosting-covered faces against his shorts, most likely staining them irreparably. Not as if they were in pristine condition to begin with.

“What’s dinner?” Phoebe demands, like she doesn’t have cupcake crumbs congealed to her cheeks.

“Goat eyes and rice,” Louis tells her, disentangling the girls from his legs and hopping down off the truck bed. “Squirrel for dessert.”

They wail, disgusted, and he grins while he ushers them into his truck. “Buckle up. We’ve got a few stops to make before we head home, alright?”

Daisy groans, head flopping back against the truck seat as she feigns death.

The twins perk up a moment later when the bakery comes into sight. Everyone in town perks up when the Styles’ bakery is in sight; that’s just how it is.

“I want a gingerbread,” Phoebe declares, leaning forward and spreading her hands on the dash, staring wide-eyed at the bakery like if she looks hard enough it’ll get closer faster.

Daisy sniffs, disdainful. “I want a _hundred_ gingerbread.”

“It’s August,” Louis says helplessly, flipping his blinker to turn into the bakery lot.

It’s empty except for a single car- a very, very nice car. A black Mustang, shining in the late afternoon sun. Louis recognizes the Styles money before it even really occurs to him that it’s clearly Harry’s car.

He spots Harry, too, sitting on the curb in front of the bakery’s door, lanky legs stretched out in front of him, pigeon toes bopping together as he fiddles with his phone. He looks up when he hears the truck roaring towards him, and his face breaks into a dimpled smile that’s so familiar it knocks Louis back a few years, has him realizing with a start that he does remember Harry Styles, actually. At least a little. Even if it was just in passing.

“Stay here,” Louis starts to say to the twins, but they’re already unbuckled and out of the truck before Louis’s even taken the key from the ignition. He rolls his eyes up to God, or to the roof of his truck, praying for strength.

By the time Louis gets out, Phoebe’s tugging on the locked bakery door and Daisy’s banging her open palms on the window, nose pressed to the glass, while Harry looks on with his mouth hanging slightly open, clearly at a loss for what to do.

“Sorry about that,” Louis says, nodding towards the hand-and-face prints being left on the bakery’s glass. “Would offer to clean it for you but, you know, don’t want to.”

Harry laughs, bright-eyed, a little goofy. “It’s alright.” He gets to his feet in an ungraceful unfolding of limbs that leaves him standing a good few inches taller than Louis, though most of it’s just that he’s standing up on the curb and Louis’ still on the pavement. “I don’t have to clean the glass, anyway.”

They stand for an awkward moment, Harry beaming at him, Louis with his hands awkwardly shoved in his pockets while he waits on Harry to give him whatever it is he left earlier. The moment goes on for too long, so Louis clears his throat, tilting his head toward the bakery slightly.

“Is it inside, or-?”

“Oh!’ Harry gasps, glancing from Louis to the storefront and back. “Oh, no, it’s actually, um-” He breaks off, bending down to pick up a brown paper sack off the pavement. “It’s-” he starts again, holding the bag- not quite uncomfortably, but uncertainly, maybe, cheeks pinking up while he smiles this big, slow smile that matches his big, slow voice almost unnaturally well. He holds the bag out to Louis, who takes it, feeling more confused than ever.

Harry’s already hurrying off to his car, and he’s slammed the door shut and brought the engine to life by the time Louis gets the bag open.

It’s just a bag of muffins. Chocolate-banana muffins, by the smell of them.

Louis blinks, glancing up in time to see the Mustang tearing out of the lot. He can’t make out Harry’s expression through the tinted windows, but he doubts anything he’d see would give him any insight into what’s just happened.

“What?” Louis says to no one in particular, letting Phoebe tear the bag out of his hands and dig a muffin out.

* * *

 

The muffin thing was, admittedly, not Harry’s proudest moment. He’s actually, he knows, very charming, and people like him, so he's not really used to like, actively _trying_ to do...whatever it was he was trying to do with Louis.

God, he thinks, dropping his head against the steering wheel so the horn blares, scaring him. He looks up to see his mom standing on the front porch, watching him with her eyebrows raised.

“Alright?” she calls when he opens the car door, and Harry just shakes his head, grinning.

“Weird day,” he says, shrugging. She hugs him when he comes up onto the porch, and they go inside together. Harry makes it through about ten minutes of listening to her talk about the progress on the current season of her cooking show before he butts in, already grimacing at cutting her off.

“Do you remember Louis Tomlinson?” he asks, and Anne stops short, tilting her head like she’s trying to bring a face to mind.

“Tomlinson.” She rolls the name in her mouth, thoughtful, a little suspicious. “He was friends with Gemma, wasn’t he?” She nods to herself, a smile breaking out now that she’s figured it out. “The baseball player! He was very good.” She stops again, giving Harry a squinted once-over. “What’s this about?”

“Nothing,” Harry says immediately, hands coming up to defend himself. He’s transparent even when he’s at his very best, and today he’s not even at his very medium. “He just came by the bakery today is all.” And he’s still funny, and he’s still gorgeous, and Harry’s still embarrassing about him, apparently. Ugh.

Anne frowns, leaning back against the island, arms crossed over her chest. “I thought he’d gone off to play ball at some out-of-state school.”

“I did, too,” Harry admits, and then they catch each other’s eye, and Harry feels the moment they make an unspoken agreement not to bring it up. The ugly divorce. The custody battle. The way the whole town had watched it unfold like a grim spectacle. “Guess he stayed.”

Anne hums, turning to the sink and tapping the water on to wash her hands. “Are you going to help with dinner, or do you have homework?”

“Homework,” Harry says regretfully, grinning when she tosses him an _oh I’m sure_ look over her shoulder.

He does have a bit of homework, actually- some reading for Lit and a few response questions for Environmental Science. Instead of doing any of that, he flops down on his bed, pulling his phone out and scrolling through his text notifications. A handful from Cara telling him what he missed due to his “bullshit lazy schedule.” A selfie of Gemma looking smug next to a window with the New York skyline visible behind her. A group text with Ed and Taylor that he hasn’t been following for a few days and is a bit too behind now to catch up on. Down below all the new stuff is the last text Louis’d sent him.

Harry shoves his face into the pillow, equal parts embarrassed and elated about it. Louis Tomlinson. Still in Buckhead. Who knew?

Probably, he should wait a few days before texting Louis again. Or just like, not text him at all, maybe, after how poorly he’d handled today.

But, then again.

Then again there’s all those senior assemblies. Seizing the day. Time flying. Making it count.

_What are you doing for labor day?_

He pinches his bottom lip between his thumb and forefinger, reading over the text two or ten times. It’s not transparent, he thinks. It’s casual. He’s casual.

He sends it.

* * *

 The sun isn’t even up over the trees when Louis steps out onto the porch, wrestling his feet into the mud-covered waders he keeps at the bottom of the steps. It’s already hot out, the dark just laying like a heavy blanket over the ground, keeping the heat in. Louis’ feet are sweating before he even gets halfway down the path to his grandfather’s house, tucked in the pines far back from the road, barely visible where it’s nestled in the shadows behind the Tomlinson trailer and the little shack of a taxidermy shop that keeps them busy.

He starts to knock on the door before he hears the telltale signs of movement behind the little house, his grandfather’s voice carrying curses from out near the dog pen. Louis rounds the corner of the house, stopping short at the sight of his grandfather trying to free his hand from the mouth of a particularly determined beagle pup.

“Morning,” Louis says, coming up to the fence and wedging his fingers gently into the pup’s clamped jaws, prising them open so his grandfather can pull his fingers free.

“That one’s a real son of a bitch,” Cooter Tomlinson mutters, and then he cuts his eyes to Louis, waiting for him to laugh. Louis just snorts and rolls his eyes, running his finger over the soft fur beneath the puppy’s chin.

“Found any buyers yet?”

His grandfather makes a gruff noise in the back of his throat, the one that means _not really_ or maybe _not that I’m willing to sell to_. The beagles are a side business, the income negligible compared to the taxidermy shop, but they’re also Cooter’s passion. That’s why there are about twenty of them, probably, and why they rarely get sold at all, even during hunting season.

“Feed ‘em while I get the bait buckets ready,” Cooter instructs, heading to the leanto shed built onto the back of his house.

Feeding the beagles is a lot more difficult than it needs to be. They lock up, fighting and baying and rolling over one another when he dumps nearly a wheelbarrow’s worth of chow around the edge of the enclosure. He has to duck into the fence and pull them apart, shoving the hackled males away from each other and keeping an eye on the one short-tempered pregnant bitch that’s bitten him more times than he cares to remember. The waders are partly for the baiting he’s going to do later, but mostly to keep his ankles away from the vicious beagle teeth.

Once the dogs are mostly settled, Louis locks the chainlink back up, grabbing another scoop of chow and whistling, looking around at the trees and waiting. He hears the clanging collar bell before he sees Ms. Piglette come loping out of the woods, thick-muscled pitbull chest heaving as she pants in the early-morning heat.

“Hiya, Pig,” he sings softly, pouring the food into her makeshift tupperware bowl. The beagles howl in protest, scratching at the fence, but Piglette doesn’t seem bothered. She’s a fine, majestic old lady.

Cooter emerges from the leanto, two giant white plastic buckets dangling from each hand. “Want to get enough to last the week, if we can manage. My tired old bones can’t handle too many trips out to the ponds anymore.”

Louis purses his lips, giving his grandfather an unimpressed look. Cooter Tomlinson is healthier than probably ninety percent of Buckhead’s residents. He’ll probably outlive just about everyone.

“Don’t sass me,” Cooter says, grinning when he slaps two of the heavy buckets into Louis’ hands. “I’ve got two feet in the grave and one asscheek left tying me to this world.”

Even Piglette snorts at that, snuffing at the empty tupperware in a very underwhelmed manner.

Baiting is hard work, and boring work, and time-consuming work. Louis’s done it most mornings for what feels like the better part of his life, so he manages most of it on autopilot now- throw the lines, haul them in, fill the traps, check the lines, repeat, repeat, repeat. He’s aching by the time the sun’s fully up, soaked with sweat and scummed-up with pond water.  
They haul the filled buckets back up to the taxidermy shop, silent except for the grunts of exertion, and Louis starts filling the bait tanks while his grandfather guts the catfish they’d managed to pull.

Hunting season hasn’t started, so most of the business the shop does at the moment is fishing related, or gun repair, or whatever other odds-and-ends Cooter’s developed a reputation for in the past sixty-something years.

It’s weird how a whole lot of not much manages to be so exhausting. Every day ends the same way, with Louis trudging back into the trailer with a bone-weary tiredness and a distinct feeling that he hasn’t done anything at all.

The girls are happy to see him, at least, most of the time. And so is his mother, during the brief interludes when her graveyard hospital shifts and his dawn-to-dusk schedule overlap enough to have brief conversations standing in the kitchen before one of them goes to bed and the other goes off to work.

Overall, time moves so strangely that he doesn’t even realize it’s passing, mostly. He went to sleep the night after graduation and he woke up a year later, and nothing’s changed much at all.

He crawls into bed, skin still overheated and misty from a too-quick shower. It won’t dry, really, because the air outside the shower’s just about as wet as the air inside it anyway. He can hear Lottie and Fizz in the room next door, voices muffled through the peeling wood-paneled wall.

Muscles aching, Louis stretches to grab his phone off the bedside table, reaching down in the crack between the mattress and the wall to fish out his charger. When the screen lights up, Harry’s text from a few days ago is still there, unopened. Louis doesn’t really need to open it anyway, can read it just fine from the homescreen.

Frankly, Louis’d forgotten Labor Day was even a holiday, and he definitely didn’t have any idea it was coming up. He knows what Harry will say if Louis answers the text. There’s only one thing to do in Buckhead during summer holidays, and Louis dreads it now as much as he’d looked forward to it a few years back.

The whole town down by the river, baking in the sun and drinking and cranking their radios up well into the night. Everyone Louis’ ever known, almost, all in one place, drunk and happy and present.

His stomach turns, thinking about seeing everyone, about them asking questions, making assumptions, just looking at him. He’s managed to avoid it pretty well for over a year.

But then again, the stupid muffins. The admittedly good, but still definitely stupid, muffins.

It’s been about four days since Harry sent the text, four days since he made Louis drive all the way back to the bakery just to give him a bag of muffins for no discernible reason. Louis taps impatiently at the screen, torn between not replying at all and trying to let Harry down gently.

In the end, he doesn’t make a decision. He just forgets


	2. fall

 

" _I:_ Why not take the shorter way home.

 _HT:_ There was no shorter way home."

from _Men in the Off Hours_

by Anne Carson

* * *

 

He doesn’t even mean to show up. It’s just that his grandpa mentions that they could use more minnows for the bait tank up at the shop, and that gosh, doesn’t today look like a nice day to go minnowing down by the river, and gosh, here’s ten dollars in his pocket! Just enough for Louis to get some gas and a Coke and maybe a bag of peanuts at the store on the way there, how convenient.

He doesn’t realize it’s Labor Day and that he’s been tricked until he rounds the red clay road that leads to the river and finds the roadside lined with trucks as far as he can see.

Part of him imagines just turning around and going home, stomping down to his grandpa’s house and giving him the “what the fuck” he deserves. But he’s here already, and he’s got the minnow cooler in the back of his truck, and there’s no point wasting the gas he already spent to get here just so he can throw a tantrum.

Louis swears under his breath but lets his truck crawl along the road until he spots an open bit of grass to park on, and wouldn’t it be his luck that he recognizes the big red jeep he’s parking beside.

“Sweet T!”

The nickname gets crowed so loud that the other people digging in the backs of their trucks for extra beer all turn to look, and a few of them must recognize him as well because nightmares upon nightmares, the call goes up like a flock of gulls screaming.

Niall Horan is grinning at him from the driver’s seat of the jeep, loose tank top hanging off one shoulder and two sweating bottles dangling from the hand he’s using to wave at Louis like he’s a mile off instead of one car-length away.

Louis pictures his grandpa’s smug face, and he can see it really clearly because it’s an exact mirror of Louis’ own shit-eating grin on the rare occasions he gets to use it these days.

“Horan,” he calls back not half as loud, but Niall seems undeterred. He swings himself out of the jeep and bounces over to hang on Louis’ driver’s side window, pushing his face into the half-hearted air conditioning.

“Haven’t seen you in for-fuckin’-ever, son.”

Louis fights a grimace and instead just shrugs, awkwardly aware of his sweaty back sliding against the leather seat. Niall’s smiling so broad and friendly that Louis doesn’t even feel too bad about having no real explanation to offer. He just makes a noncommittal noise in the back of his throat and then raises his eyebrows at the bottles still dangling from Niall’s hand. “That all you’re having?” he asks, his own lips twitching up a little, because like - Niall Horan, two beers?

Any Horan, two beers, for that matter?

Niall roars a laugh and wrenches open Louis’ door, hauling him out of the truck with an arm slung around Louis’ neck. “You fuckin’ wish.”

“We’re all going to fuckin’ wish in a few hours,” Louis mutters, feeling a weird sort of light he hasn’t felt in a while, allowing Niall to tug him into a half hug and rattle away in his ear.

“You know it, you know it. Who’re you meeting anyway? Me ‘n Greg got a big set-up down by Burnt Fort if you’ve got time to stop by-”

The part of Louis that’s been hiding out for a year wants to duck out from under Niall’s arm and make his excuses, head back home empty handed and crawl into bed and call it a day. But the other part of him that feels like it’s been sleeping feels- awake, almost. Like all this sun and sound might be a medicine, if he can just make himself swallow past the first bitter taste.

“No, I’m- I was just going baiting, so I ain’t got nowhere to be-”

Louis remembers Niall from high school, remembers liking him for exactly this reason- he skips over the part where Louis mentions not having a fucking life and goes straight to whooping with joy because Louis is even here.

“A-fuckin-men!” and Niall doesn’t wait any longer before dragging Louis down the sloped ditch and into the woods, towards the sounds of the river and the people and the last holiday of the summer.

* * *

Harry doesn’t really expect Louis to show up.

That’s not true. He actually really, really, really expected Louis to show up, so when the sun starts sinking down behind the trees and Louis hasn’t made an appearance, Harry figures he’s not going to show, and he stops shrugging off the drinks people try to hand him.

So when he does see Louis, and Louis doesn’t seem to be looking for him at all, Harry maybe handles it in a manner that is slightly less charming than he’d usually prefer.

It doesn’t help that Louis looks- like he does. Sun-hot and sturdy, hair wild from presumably spending the day by and in the river, but not with Harry.

“Hey,” Harry calls, tongue beer-thick in his mouth, which tastes a bit like an undercooked bread basket at this point.

There are about three different radios blaring the same station, so it’s not surprising that Louis doesn’t hear him right away. He’s picking his way along the mud-grass river bank with his arm around one of the Horan boys, and they’re both red-faced and laughing, obviously not completely sober, but probably still a little, possibly, maybe, more sober than Harry.

Calling for Louis clearly isn’t going to work, so Harry struggles up from where he’s been lounging by the fire and starts to stumble down to the river, doing his level best to casually intercept Louis and - not Greg, too short, must be Niall - where they’re weaving along.

So his legs misinterpret “casually intercept” and somehow read that command as “violently barrel into.” These things happen.

There’s a lot of swearing and limbs tangling to the tune of laughter from higher up the bank, and by the time it’s all mostly sorted out, Harry and Louis are standing knee-deep in the shallows, Louis holding up more of Harry’s weight than Harry’s own bones.

“Shit, Styles,” Louis spits, wedging a shoulder under Harry’s armpit to keep him mostly upright. They sway dangerously, like they might end up face-first in the river, but then Louis shifts his stance a little, digs his heels in against the lazy current, and they’re mostly stable. “What the fuck’re you trying to do, drown us?”

Harry purses his lips, partly to think of an answer and partly so he won’t be sick all over Louis. He finally decides on a reproachful look and saying, “You didn’t come,” with as much disappointment as he can muster, though he has the vague feeling one of his eyes has wandered off to attend to its own business.

Louis finally seems to have gotten himself together enough to take a good long look at Harry, and he doesn’t seem terribly impressed by what he sees, though there’s an amused tilt to his lips when he snorts and says, “Jesus, Styles, you’re fucking hooty-eyed.”

That makes Harry squawk and flail so hard they nearly end up in the river again, and that’s only righted when Niall decides to jump back in and grab Harry’s other side. Louis and Niall drag him back up onto the bank, and they all stand dripping in the grass.

“I’m _not_ hooty-eyed!” Harry says a little too loudly, since his mouth is right by Louis’ ear and his head is sort of lolling onto Louis’ shoulder.

“Alright, big boy, you’re not hooty-eyed,” Louis agrees easily, working with Niall to get Harry sat down in a foldout chair near one of the bank fires. “You’re just fuckin’ hammered.”

Harry means to protest but then his stomach heaves violently and he decides to keep his mouth firmly shut for a minute, just until that passes, and maybe he’ll close his eyes too, if the ground’s going to start spinning like that, if the fire’s going to keep moving-

A hand pats soft at his cheek and someone’s fingers physically pull his eyelids open, and it takes a moment to focus on Louis and Niall who’re both frowning at him.

“Jesus, who even let you drink?” he hears Louis murmur to himself before he disappears into the dark, and Harry’s left blinking after him while Niall settles onto the trifold chair beside Harry.

“Wouldn’t close your eyes much,” Niall says brightly, “unless you want everyone to see your guts crawl out your mouth.”

That visual sends Harry’s guts just that bit closer to doing so, but he takes Niall’s advice and doesn’t let himself nod off. That’s good, too, because Louis’ back a moment later, two water bottles clutched in his hands. He takes the other part of the trifold so Harry’s sandwiched between him and Niall, which is nice because now that it’s dark and he’s wet, it’s started to get cool. Louis presses an open bottle in Harry’s hand.

“None for me?” Niall asks, but he doesn’t sound upset, and Louis just laughs, taking a gulp from his own bottle before passing it across Harry to Niall. It’s such a weird thing for Harry’s brain to latch onto, but he feels sore that Niall gets to share Louis’ water. He frowns at the bottle when it’s passed back in front of his face.

“Knock that back,” Louis says, nodding to the water Harry’s already forgotten he was holding, even though it’s tilted and started dripping down his hand. “Nice and slow,” he warns, grabbing the bottle when Harry goes to tip it straight up and down it in one. “We’re not shotgunning PBR anymore, we’re just hanging out.” He tilts the bottle to a more conservative angle and watches Harry drink. “Like you wanted, right? Hanging out.”

Harry holds the water bottle between his knees and picks at the label, but he says, “Okay,” and the corners of his mouth tug up even though he’s already starting to feel stupid and, yes, thanks, lousy. “Sorry,” he says a minute later. His left side is cold and he wonders where Niall’s gone, but Louis’ still summer-sun hot beside him, so that’s alright.

“What for?”

The moon is big, not full but close, and the river runs silver in places reflecting it back up to the sky. Everything feels slower, even the music softer and further off - things not winding down, exactly, but relaxing. Hanging out.

“Being an idiot,” Harry croaks around a burp that’s more liquid than air. “Ugh.”

When he chances a sidelong glance at Louis, his mouth is pulled into a tight line but the corner is slightly lifted like he can’t help it. “You’re not even old enough to drink, Styles. You never even had a beer before this, have you?”

Harry wants to remind Louis that he, technically, is not quite old enough either. But there’s something about Louis that’s different than Harry remembers, and he looks older than he is sometimes - not physically, exactly, just something in the set of his jaw, the way his eyes go far-off, his shoulders tight. Something.

“Have, too,” Harry argues back, swaying a little until he’s resting more of his weight against Louis, because he’s warm and steady and Harry wants to, has wanted to for an embarrassingly long time.

“What, snuck one into your daddy’s basement when you were thirteen just to see? Got caught and haven’t tried it since?” Louis’ grinning now, and Harry’s mouth pops open.

“How did you-”

“Gemma might have mentioned it.” Louis shrugs, lifting his water to his lips and taking a measured sip. “And I might remember you a little bit. Especially if you were embarrassing yourself.”

And that’s not even fair that Louis - that apparently - that he _remembers_. That Harry wasn’t invisible, and he’s only finding out now when Louis’ already made up his mind that Harry’s an idiot.

Harry drops his face into his hands and groans. “I didn’t think you were coming tonight,” Harry says. “Or I- I did, actually, but then you didn’t- or you did, I guess-”

Louis makes a soft noise in his throat, apologetic somehow. “I wasn’t going to,” he admits, voice low. Harry’s body stiffens where they’re pressed together but Louis nudges him. “It wasn’t because of you or anything. I really didn’t want to-” He cuts himself off and frowns at the dirt beneath their bare feet. “I was wearing shoes when I got here,” Louis says dully, and Harry’s startled into laughing even though he feels awful.

When Harry’s giggles have trailed off, Louis blows out a boozy breath.

“I didn’t want to come,” he admits. “I didn’t even realize what day it was, and then I was here and Niall was here and he made it almost bearable, but it still feels like everyone’s eyes are burning into my back wherever I go.”

Like clockwork, he hears a group at a nearby fire take notice of them, notice of Louis, loud drunk mumbles about _is that oh my god I haven’t seen him in ages I thought he’d gone off to play ball nah didn’t you hear-_

Drunk as he is, Harry doesn’t miss Louis going rigid beside him.

“Christ,” Louis groans, slurred into about eight syllables when he drops his face into his hands and laughs. “Jesus fuckin’ Christ, Styles. I’m tired.”

“‘s ‘cause you’re an old man, now,” Harry tells him, hiccuping slightly in the middle and ruining the delivery.

Louis knocks their shoulders together, a bit harder than necessary. “You got a ride home, Styles? You’re not fucking driving.”

“Not sure where my keys are,” Harry admits sheepishly. Or actually- “No, hang on. Never had my keys. Rode with Cara.”

“You should probably give her a call then. Think it’s about time for you to head off.”

“Are you going home?” Harry asks, swaying into Louis’s side again. “Cause sometimes you don’t.”

Louis blinks at him, head cocked. His face seems impossibly close, somehow, like Harry could just fall into him, like the earth's tilting them together. “What’s that supposed to mean?”

Harry tilts the mostly empty water bottle, pulling his eyes away from Louis with some effort and instead watching the dregs in the bottle catch the firelight. “I saw you a couple weeks ago, real late. I wondered where you were going, is all.”

It takes a moment for Louis to understand what Harry’s asking about, but Harry can pick out the moment he does, his face shuttering the same way it had at the bakery that day. “Visiting my secret girlfriend,” Louis jokes, a sharp edge to his grin.

Harry shakes his head, regretting it when his vision swims. “You don’t have a secret girlfriend. Everyone’d know.”

They intone, _“No secrets in Buckhead,”_ together, Louis rolling his eyes and Harry smirking because they both know he’s right.

“You’ll tell me eventually,” Harry says, smiling down at the water bottle again.

Louis scoffs. “Why don’t you use those psychic powers to predict yourself a ride home?”

“‘m not predicting,” Harry mumbles, brushing his hair back from his forehead and shrugging. “Just hoping.”

He’s not sure if Louis actually hears him over the sound of Niall stumbling back over, laughing as he drops back onto the trifold, half onto Louis’ lap.

“Lookin’ better, Styles,” Niall says, reaching out to pat Harry’s shoulder in a way that’s probably meant to be comforting but only makes his eyes cross. “Cara’s looking for you, by the way. Down by the trailhead.”

Harry tries to stand but ends up swaying dangerously, and Louis and Niall both press their hands to his back to keep him upright.

“Useless,” Louis huffs, standing and wedging a shoulder under Harry’s arm again. “I’ll take him, alright?” He’s talking to Niall, peering over Harry’s shoulder, voice close to his ear. “It was good to see you again.”

“You got my number,” Niall says brightly, an undercurrent that silently adds _so use it_.

They stumble through the remnants of the celebration, banked fires and low music and people half-asleep on blankets in the grass. Harry spots Cara standing near the trailhead, just as Niall’d said, and she waves at him, squinting in the dark to see who he’s with.

Louis gets Harry mostly upright and steps away, pushing him gently towards Cara. “Stay safe, Styles, hear me?” He pauses for a moment, mouth slightly open like he’s debating on whether he should say what he says next. “Text me when you get home, alright? So I know you didn’t get yourself killed.”

Harry’s insides swell, blessedly not in a way that makes him feel as if he’s going to puke. “Alright,” he croaks, stumbling over to Cara. He can already feel her eyes burning into the side of his head, full of questions.

They watch Louis disappear, and Cara pinches Harry _hard_ as soon as he’s out of sight. “Was that Louis fucking Tomlinson?” she hisses, eyes shining. She smells like smoke and creek water, blessedly sober.

Harry rolls his eyes up at the sky, grimacing, because of course Cara remembers his embarrassing thing for Louis Tomlinson. Of course. He wishes he were more and also less drunk, but mostly he wishes he was home in bed, and he’s glad when Cara takes pity on him and offers to give him a ride.

He’s not nearly sober when he gets home, but he’s alright enough that he doesn’t wake his parents when he stumbles up to his bedroom, feet catching the stairs an embarrassing number of times. He falls into bed, burying his face in the pillow and just breathing, glad his head isn’t spinning quite so much.

_made it hom e_

He sends it, then blinks at the bright blur of his phone, debating. He types out another message, more carefully this time, and then shoves his phone under his pillow so he can get to sleep and hopefully bypass the worst of the truly epic hangover headed his way.

* * *

 

Louis wakes up the next morning feeling alright, a little more tired than usual but otherwise good. He’d gotten Harry’s message about making it home before he passed out, so he’s surprised when there are a handful of new texts waiting for him.

There are several from Niall, saying it was sick to see him and inviting him out to the Horan’s farm to watch the game Saturday. Louis doesn’t answer right away, but he doesn’t delete them either. Below those is another text from Harry, sent apparently moments after Louis’d fallen asleep.

_glad you came:)_

Maybe from someone else it could’ve been passive aggressive, but Louis can still hear Harry’s slurred _Just hoping_ echoing in his ears. He’s not sure what Harry’s trying to accomplish, but it’s- something. Flattering, maybe. There’s something about his attention that’s hard to shrug off.

Louis shrugs it off anyway, pushing his phone away and rolling out of bed, mentally preparing himself for another day of backbreaking exhaustion. Ms. Piglette is laying on the porch when he steps out, and her nub of a tail shakes frantically when he drops down to scruff his knuckles across her head.

“Ms. Piglette, how’d you like to go for a drive today?” he asks, stifling a yawn and a laugh when she struggles up onto her bowed legs, whole body shaking with the force of her tailless wagging. “Have to feed those damn beagles first,” he whispers conspiratorially, and Piglette huffs. If any dog could roll its eyes, Louis knows, it’d be Ms. Piglette.

The beagles cause their usual chaos but the work goes quickly enough when Louis realizes Cooter isn’t hanging about, which means it’s not a bait day. He whistles for Piglette, who’s gotten off somewhere to cause some sort of havoc, and she comes barreling up beside him as he loads scrap metal into the back of his truck.

He’ll have to drive all the way to Duluth to sell it, but a little road trip with Piglette seems like a nice way to unwind after last night. He’s still a little itchy and nervous thinking about it, how now everyone’ll know for sure that he’s still here. He thinks about Niall’s number in his phone, the _dont be a stranger !_ text he’d sent last night, about the fact that it’s a Sunday and maybe-

Niall picks up on the third ring, voice gruff like he’s still mostly asleep. “What?” he grumbles, and Louis bites back a smile even as his stomach lurches nervously, picturing Niall talking into the phone even though his face is probably still buried in his pillow.

“How do you feel about a little road trip?” Louis asks, pulse kicking up, nerves twisting.

There’s a beat of silence where Louis thinks Niall might’ve fallen back asleep, then a vague noise of assent. “Better buy me breakfast.”

“All the dollar menu your heart could desire,” agrees Louis, balancing the phone between his cheek and shoulder so he can slam the tailgate shut. He hangs up with Niall, pulling open the truck door and stepping aside so Pig can launch herself in, feet scritch-scratching at the seating when she doesn’t quite make her first jump. Louis pushes her hind legs up onto the seat, climbing in beside her and leaning across to roll down the passenger window so Piglette can stick her head out.

The Horan house is on the other side of town, out in the country that’s more farmland than the swamp that backs the Tomlinson property. It’s a big old barn, converted generations ago into a nice livable house with another real, actual barn behind it and the tricounty-famous Horan corn field behind _that_. Niall’s jeep sits in the grass between three other vehicles in various states of disrepair, and Niall’s standing in the bed of a truck that Louis _knows_ hasn’t moved since the fifties.

“Look who it is,” Niall calls, shielding his eyes against the white-bright morning sun. “Risen from the dead.”

Louis leans out the window, Pig mirroring him from the other side of the truck. “Like you can talk, Horan. Sounded like I woke you out your damn grave this morning.”

Niall’s face splits into an easy grin and he hops down off the truck bed, wincing a little when one of his knees buckles slightly. Still having trouble with it, apparently. Louis knows the feeling.“You pulled out the big guns. _Dollar Menu_ ,” he says dreamily, coming up to the passenger door and stopping short at the sight of Ms. Piglette staring at him from eye-level. “Well, hello, ma’am!”

“That’s Ms. Piglette,” Louis tells him, and she turns at the sound of her name, moving away from the door to flump down beside Louis in the center of the truck bench.

Niall swings himself into Pig’s vacated seat, offering her a friendly open palm to sniff. “You’re a beautiful lady, Ms. Piglette.”

Pig preens while Niall scratches her ears and Louis rolls his eyes. “Believe me, she knows.”

Duluth’s not quite an hour away, and Louis spends the first half of that time so tense his left asscheek starts cramping. It becomes clear though, after about thirty minutes of aimless, pleasant conversation, that Niall’s probably not going to ask about- well, anything. He seems perfectly happy to carry on about the upcoming Screaming Devil’s football season and how unbearably hot the summer’s been and his favorite episodes off Anne Styles’ cooking show ( _Coca-Cola cake, duh_ ).

In fact, the only time Niall mentions baseball at all is when he’s talking about the Braves’ chance at the World Series, which makes them both laugh so hard that Piglette howls along.

All in all, it’s nice being around someone other than his grandpa or sisters. It’s nerve-wracking in a way Louis couldn’t have even imagined two years ago when he was on top of the world, but it’s not bad. Even if Niall threatens to eat Louis to bankruptcy in the Duluth McDonald’s drive-thru.

* * *

 

Environmental Science is to AP classes as Go Fish is to sudoku puzzles, probably. Or something like that- Harry finished his Lit homework half an hour ago so he doesn’t have to worry about analogies until class tomorrow. Even Environmental Science reading is ridiculously easy, the textbook mostly pictures of grass and cartoons of sad turtles lamenting the poor recycling habits of the modern world.

Harry can’t stop peeking at his phone.

Usually, he leaves it turned off while he’s doing homework, but it’s Sunday. It’s Sunday, and Louis never texted him back. What he needs, Harry thinks plaintively, is a reason to talk to Louis. Something more substantial than ambush muffins. He clicks his pen lazily, slumping back in his desk chair and staring at the glow-in-the-dark stars on his ceiling. There aren’t any parties coming up. There’s a football game Friday, but somehow that doesn’t seem- like just _inviting him_ to hang out doesn’t seem like it’ll work. He needs a plan. He needs an _adventure._

Harry reaches for his phone, again, and knocks a paper to the floor in the process. It’s just the rubric for the almost irresponsibly easy EnviroSci end-of-course project, and Harry nearly leaves it on the floor. Except-

Except.

_Hey, does your grandad still run the taxidermy shop?_

It’s not a question Harry needs to ask, because everyone knows Tomlinson Taxidermy will have to be pried from Cooter Tomlinson’s cold dead hands with a crowbar, but it’s a nice set-up. A nice, casual set-up. Louis responds after Harry’s read the same paragraph about oil spills for the hundredth time.

_yea_

_If I come by tomorrow after the bakery closes, can I ask you a few questions? It’s for a school project._

The next response takes a bit longer, and Harry’s nearly chewed through his pen by the time he gets back a simple, _sure_

Harry beams, dimpling up so quickly his cheeks ache. He sends back a thanks and then flips his textbook closed, too happy to worry about reading for a class where they still have to make dioramas like they’re in elementary school.

It is predictably hard to fall asleep now that there’s something to look forward to besides the monotony of a regular Monday, and then of course the monotony of a regular Monday drags on in the world’s slowest progression of seconds. The last fifteen minutes before he can close up the bakery takes, Harry is pretty sure, about eighty-four years.

The drive out to the Tomlinson's takes another small decade, but it’s a nice drive. Big mossy limbs overhang the road, shaded so it’s not too hot even when Harry rolls the windows down. He crosses the railroad tracks, the single faded red cross warning of their presence, and then beyond that the wild bend in the road, the smaller white cross planted in the ditch, wreathed in flowers even two years later. The shock of the white in all the green of the roadside catches Harry’s eye and he checks his speed, forcing himself to slow to something arguably close to the speed limit.

His gut clenches, even now, and he wonders what it’s like for Louis, having to drive by that cross every day.

About ten minutes later, he spots the handmade sign for Tomlinson’s Taxidermy- just a splash of black paint on a dusty white stretch of plywood. The shop sits off to the side of a bright yellow double-wide trailer with a tacked-on front porch, and in the space between there are three little girls- the eldest reading a book in the grass, the littler twins with their ears pressed to the dirt, looks of deep concentration on their faces.

They all glance up in what could charitably be called mild interest when Harry pulls up the dirt drive, but the twins’ faces turn hawk-like when they recognize him. He’s barely stepped out of his car before they’re on him, hands on their hips and very stern expressions leveled his way.

“You’re from the bakery,” one says, and the other nods.

“It’s rude to visit without presents.”

Harry flounders, awkwardly adjusting his backpack, because they’re _right_ , actually, and he should’ve thought of that. He’s still standing with his mouth hanging open stupidly when a lazy voice calls out from behind him.

“Girls, quit bothering him. You’ve got work to do.”

Harry spins to find Louis standing in the shade of the taxidermy shop, watching with an amused quirk to his lips. He’s sweated through nearly every inch of his gray shirt and there are worrying dark stains on his cutoffs, but he looks _good_. Comfortable and easy in a way he hasn’t been any of the other times Harry’s seen him this summer.

The twins groan but tramp back to their patch of grass, collapsing to the ground and going back to “work.” Harry watches them curiously, glancing over to Louis for an explanation.

“They’re singing up worms,” Louis says when Harry gets close enough. “Sell them for bait.”

That, frankly, sounds made up, and Harry remembers how Louis used to tease everyone. He doesn’t _look_ like he’s teasing, though, just looks a little fond and exasperated as the twins bicker.

“I don’t know what that means,” Harry admits, “but thanks for having me over.”

Louis’ eyes turn sharp, cutting the muggy air between them and landing on Harry with an almost physical jolt. “School project, huh?”

“Yep,” Harry not-exactly lies, popping the p. “AP Environmental Science.”

He wants to hit himself when Louis snorts, lip curling, and lilts, “Oh, well if it’s _AP_ -”

Without any further warning, Louis turns and heads into the shop, leaving Harry to hurry along behind him. It’s cool inside, cramped and shadowy, filled with the noise of the industrial fan and the hum of the bait tank in the corner. The bare plywood walls are covered with dusty advertisements for old hunting equipment, yellowing scribbled coloring book pages, and Harry gets distracted trying to pick out which ones might’ve been done by Louis. There’s a counter that Louis ducks behind; it holds an ancient cash register, a Garfield daily calendar that’s about three years behind, a Folgers can filled with pens and screwdrivers.

“What’s your project?” Louis asks, not sounding remotely curious as he moves around behind the counter, dragging a five gallon bucket out from beneath one of the tables that line the walls. If the front of the shop is cramped, it’s nothing compared to the chaos of the workspace. Every inch of space is filled with buckets and bags and metal instruments in various stages of rusting away. The only clear space is the surface of the once-white table right in the center of the room, and Louis leans back against it while he kicks the bucket beneath a shin-level faucet and watches it fill.

Harry stands uncertainly near the front counter, watching Louis watch the bucket. “It’s a scrapbook about local flora and fauna.”

“A scrapbook,” Louis repeats flatly, sounding about as unimpressed as Harry had felt when he first read the assignment.

“We’re supposed to capture what makes this area environmentally unique,” Harry goes on, trying to make it sound important and not like something he could throw together the weekend before it’s due. “And my family’s not really, like-”

Louis looks up from the bucket sharply, eyebrow lifted with a hint of challenge.

“Woodsy,” Harry finishes carefully.

Louis leans down to turn the water off before hefting the now mostly-full bucket, shoulders and biceps straining against the weight. He doesn’t tell Harry to follow him when he makes his way to the back door of the shop, but Harry does anyway, ducking around the counter liked he’d seen Louis do before and picking his way through the minefield of equipment. Louis’ already kicked the screen door open and heaved the bucket out into the sun-hot, sawdust-covered patch of yard directly behind the shop by the time Harry’s caught up with him.

“Why can’t you just go out in the woods behind your house and take some pictures there?” Louis doesn’t spare him a glance to accompany the question, just heads over to grab what looks like a fifty-pound bag of some sort of plaster mix from where it’s leaning against the shady side of the building.

Harry prepared for this. He slings his backpack off one shoulder so he can dig through until he finds his camera case, holding it up between them like evidence. “I want to make sure my project stands out. I’ve always liked doing photography, and I figure if I can get some unique photos for this scrapbook I can add them to my portfolio as well. Two birds with one stone, right?” He smiles in what he hopes is a winning manner, squinting against the bright sunlight and trying to make out the shadows of Louis’ face. He's careful not to mention the yearbook thing again, just in case.

“And what exactly do you want from me?” Louis asks, hefting the bag up and tipping it over the bucket so the white-gray powder pours out in fits and starts.

“Take me places,” Harry says, then winces at how desperate it sounds. “I won’t get in your way, I promise. Just, when you go out into the woods or- or wherever you go for bait and all, take me with you.”

Louis drops the plaster bag at his feet, a small cloud of dust rising from its open neck. He wipes his palms on his thighs before straightening up to look Harry in the eye, crossing his arms over his chest and tilting his chin up. Harry’s waiting for the inevitable _and what’s in it for me_ , so he’s not ready when Louis asks, “Why me?”

Harry nearly drops his camera and backpack, fumbling to get a grip on them and hoping Louis will somehow not find this all very suspicious and embarrassing. “I- I don’t know,” he answers lamely, deflating. He scratches at the back of his neck, shrugging his backpack more fully onto his shoulder again. “You were just the first person I thought of.” He laughs at himself, hoping Louis will just drop it and laugh at him as well. “Sorry. I know you’re busy. Thanks for letting me come over to talk, though,” Harry says, trying to sound cheerful and not half as disappointed as he feels. “Stop by the bakery again soon, alright? Free muffins.”

He’s turned to go, wondering if Louis would notice if Harry _actually_ sprinted to his car, when Louis says, “You’ll have to be here early. I start before the sun comes up.”

Harry whirls, a thousand questions ready to burst, but Louis’ already disappearing back into the shop, screen door slamming behind him.

* * *

 

He’s chest-deep in the ice vault when someone taps him on the back and lightly clears their throat. He nearly tears his head off scrambling out, a twenty pound bag of ice clutched under each arm.

There’s a young woman in a sundress, bleached blonde hair and big glasses pushed up off her forehead. She’s smiling apologetically, one hand stretched out like she was trying to help. “Sorry!” she says, and her voice is unexpected, fast. “I didn’t mean to startle you. I was hoping you could just tell me if there’s a B&B here? We’re on a road trip,” she explains, gesturing over her shoulder, and yeah, by the gas pumps there’s three more girls and a convertible. They’re all pretending not to watch, sucking on slushies from the gas station and inspecting a bag of boiled peanuts like it’s a textbook.

Louis drops his bags of ice at his feet and scans his brain for what the fuck a B&B is, and then he remembers those romantic movies his mom watches on Lifetime, and that he sometimes maybe doesn’t completely not pay attention to. “Like a motel?” he asks, tilting his head, and she brightens.

“Anything will do at this point! We’ve just been on the road for fourteen hours...” She laughs, and he smiles because it’s a nice sound.

“The Horans up the road, they got a guest house they’ll probably rent out.” He points the way he means, and she follows the line of his arm. “It used to be a barn, so it’s not real nice or nothing. But it’s better than driving another hour and a half to the next town probably.”

They both laugh, and she’s closer than he remembers. If it weren’t already so hot out, he’d be able to feel the heat off her arm where it’s near pressed against him. It’s startling, because this used to be something he was familiar with. Flirting with people. God.

“Yeah, we’ll drop by! Thanks.” But then she doesn’t actually leave, and they’re standing there too close, in front of a gas station, smiling at each other. Louis wonders what he’d have done when he was eighteen. Asked her to dinner at least.

“You must be used to this heat,” she laughs after a minute, fanning herself with a folded brochure from the ghost tour that runs three nights a week out of the old burnt church in the middle of town.

“No, ma’am,” he huffs, pushing his hair up off his forehead and grimacing when he can feel it sticking straight up from his scalp, molded by the sweat. “Not much getting used to it, to be honest. Just living with it.” She looks charmed, but all the tourists driving through are charmed by a ma’am or two. It’s still flattering, how she’s looking at him. He’d forgotten.

She asks him a few more questions about the town, the ghost tour ( _are there really ghosts? I don’t know, ma’am, never been_ ), the Horans. The Styles’ bakery ( _is it really the Anne Styles? From tv? Yep, one and the same._ )

For her, this town’s just an interstate stop on the way to Disneyland. It’s where her and her friends pulled off because the gas was cheapest or because they saw the one dilapidated billboard a few miles back- **FRESH PEACHES! PECAN LOG ROLLS! BOILED PEANUTS!** and thought it would be a nice place to stretch their legs.

He wonders how it looks to them- if it _is_ a nice place to pass through. To spend one night in and never see again. Can’t even wrap his head around what that might be like without going dizzy.

“Just ask for Niall and tell him Tomlinson sent you,” he says finally, when they’ve exhausted all you could possibly say to a stranger you’ll never see again at a gas station while the sun burns the back of your neck. “He runs that ghost tour, too,” he adds, nodding at the pamphlet still clutched in her hand.

She thanks him again, looking a little disappointed but mostly still happy, friendly and sweet. And why shouldn’t she? Road trip with her best friends. Louis doesn’t even feel jealous when he watches the convertible head off down the road, just a warm glowing kind of contentment, a dash of longing, maybe.

He looks down and the bags of ice are half melted at his feet.

“Fuck.”

Inside the gas station, there’s a counter where fried foods are made at six am and then served until ten pm, and never freshened up at all during the day. At one of the two old-fashioned diner booths next to the fry counter, Louis spots a vaguely familiar shape hunched over a plate of corndogs.

He hesitates by the ice cream cooler, because truthfully he doesn’t know Liam Payne at all. Just met him at the river on Labor Day when they were both slightly too drunk for the introduction to properly count. But he looks sad, and it’s got to be going on six o’clock, which means he looks sad and he’s sitting in front of a plate of four twelve-hour-old corndogs.

Louis sighs, and then heads over to the booth, sliding in across from Liam and propping his chin up on his hand, offering a bright, if tired, grin.

“Don’t know if you remember me,” Louis says, “but those corndogs aren’t fit for human consumption after about eight in the morning.”

Liam jumps, eyes flying wide open as he blinks across the table at Louis, like he’s never seen another person before. “What?”

“These.” Louis plucks up one of the corndogs by the stick, waving it in the air between them. The smell of old grease wafts, heavy and off-puttingly sweet. “These are old enough to be corndog grandparents.”

Liam stares at the corndog, and then at Louis, and then at his plate. “I’m not supposed to have them anyway,” he admits sheepishly, and Louis frowns.

“Who the fuck told you you can’t eat a corndog?” he demands, waving it at Liam’s face again.

“You, sort of? Just now?” Louis starts to protest that no, actually, he said Liam _shouldn’t_ , not that he couldn’t. “But mainly the military.” And oh, that’s right. Niall’d said Liam was a FLETC boy. “I have my first boot camp in the spring.”

“That’s ages away,” Louis says, dropping the corndog onto Liam’s plate. “You still shouldn’t eat those, by the way, but Jesus, go to McDonald’s or something if you want to pig out.”

Liam’s face does a sad puppy twist. “I just miss home a little, I think,” he says, frowning down at his corndogs. “My mom used to make corndogs every Thursday, and I tried to make them in my apartment but I keep burning them, and I just wanted-”

“Come on,” Louis says, slinging himself out of the booth. Liam stares up at him, mouth slightly open, and Louis rolls his eyes, jerking his head impatiently. “Come the fuck on, Liam. You’re making _me_ homesick and I’ve never left my house for more than a week in my whole damn life.”

Liam stands up, taking his plate of corndogs in both hands and looking endearingly lost. “Where are we going?” he asks, and Louis grabs the corndogs and tosses them in the trashcan by the counter, heading for the door and trusting Liam to follow.

“Home, Liam,” Louis says, like it’s obvious. “God.”

So that’s how Liam Payne ends up sitting at the dinner table between Louis’ mom and Lottie, homemade corndogs piled high enough on the table that Louis has to crane his neck a little to take in Liam’s awestruck face. That’s also, actually, how Liam ends up living in Louis’ grandpa’s spare room, because his ma hears the words “FLETC Housing” and nearly has a fit about it.

“Wow,” Liam says after the whirlwind of dinner is over and they’re sitting out on the front porch steps, watching bats dart through the lazy swarm of evening bugs. “Wow.”

“Southern hospitality,” Louis says, head resting against the banister because it’s surprisingly tiresome, being thanked so profusely so many times in barely an hour.

“I don’t think so.” Liam’s smiling slightly, shell-shocked as he is. “I think you’re just good people.”

“Well.” But Louis doesn’t say anything else, because he’s not sure what to say to that. His mom is a great person, and so’s his grandpa. And his sisters are angels when they aren’t raising hell. Louis’ just himself, and all he did was drag Liam to dinner. Still, he doesn’t want to fight him about it, because he looks happy.

Still, when the sun sinks behind the treeline and everyone in the house has gone quiet, Louis lays awake, sweating, tossing, turning, fidgeting. The ceiling bears down on him, weight squeezing his chest tight so his lungs won’t fill up properly. Around two in the morning, he gives up on sleep, rolls out of bed, grabs his keys, eases himself out the door. Heads for the one place he can breathe.

* * *

 

Sleeping in is nice, but there’s something to be said for seeing Louis Tomlinson stumble half-asleep out into the early dawn light, blinking owlishly and grudgingly surprised at the sight of Harry’s car sitting in the yard. He only misses half a heartbeat before he seems to pull himself together, yawning wide and sparing Harry a bleary once-over.

Harry stands up from where he’d been leaning on the Mustang’s hood, adjusting the camera strap around his neck and giving Louis a little wave. “Morning.”

Louis scowls, an expression made even more menacing by the deep bags under his eyes.

“Out late last night?” Harry asks innocently, following a step behind Louis as they make their way around the back of Tomlinson’s trailer. The minute they step into eyeline, the whole world breaks out in howling and snarls, and the hair on Harry’s nape stands, palms sweating. There’s a massive chain link pen of more beagles than Harry’s ever seen in his life put together, much less all at once.

Louis grunts, stepping around Harry without so much as a glance. He moves easily, tired but practiced, like he could do all this in his sleep. Harry knows he should help, but it seems like he’d get in the way more than he’d do any good, so he stands to the side and watches Louis work, camera half-raised because he hasn’t actually asked for permission to take pictures of Louis himself.

Harry’s busy watching the bunch and bulge of Louis’ arms as he lifts buckets and food bags, so he doesn’t hear anything approaching until something shoves very forcefully between his legs from behind. He yelps, stumbling forward, and Louis looks over his shoulder just long enough to offer a gruff, “Pig, _no_ ,” before going back to work.

When Harry rights himself, a white pitbull is sniffing circles around him, stump of a tail shaking madly.

“That’s Ms. Piglette,” Louis says, a little out of breath as he heaves a massive feedsack onto his shoulder. “She’s harmless.”

Ms. Piglette flumps down on her hindquarters, huffing a rough little bark up at Harry. Harry’s never had a dog, and he’s not really sure what the protocol is for introducing himself to one.

He’s spared having to figure it out by Louis saying, “Go start my truck, will you? Keys are on the front porch.”

Harry does as he’s told, climbing into the truck and pausing for a minute at the faint smell of cigarette smoke. He hadn’t known Louis smoked, and it makes him wrinkle his nose a little. Apparently he’s still making a face when Louis turns up, because he gets an unimpressed Look and a raspy, “ _What_?”

“Nothing,” Harry lies, scooting across the bench seat until he’s on the passenger side and Louis can climb in the driver’s seat. “Where are we going?”

“Work,” Louis says shortly, rolling down the window and leaning out to call, “Stay, Pig!” at a clearly-offended Ms. Piglette.

Instead of pulling out of the driveway, Louis drives further onto the Tomlinson property, easing the truck between unevenly spaced pine trees until a dirt path appears and the trailer and taxidermy shop are lost in the woods at their backs. It’s bumpy and uneven terrain, has Harry subtly gripping the door handle and clenching his teeth so they don’t rattle right out of his skull. It feels like it goes on forever, and when Louis finally hits the brakes and shuts the truck off at a seemingly random place along the road, Harry breathes a sigh of relief.

Louis hops out, circling to the back and pulling the tailgate down with a rusty, grating squeal. Harry looks curiously into the truck bed, watching Louis haul himself up so he’s standing a torso-length higher than Harry.

It turns out that they’re meant to be sewing corn, some sort of hunter’s trick to draw deer when the season starts in a few weeks. Louis explains the method while he moves around in the back of the truck, digging handfuls of kernels out of a half-full burlap sack and distributing them into two much smaller bags that fit in the pockets of his loose shorts.

“It doesn’t need to grow very much, so we can wait until late in the summer.” He jumps down from the truck bed, metal frame groaning at the release of tension. “Come on. Watch where you step.”

Harry does his best, stumbling over roots and limbs once or twice as he follows Louis off the path and into the thicker woods. Louis seems to know where he wants to go, and it takes Harry a while to figure out he’s following tiny orange markers placed high on some of the tree trunks. The underbrush is thick and knotted until it isn’t, sun finally filtering down into a small clearing that turns out to be their destination.

Harry’s sweating miserably by the time they get there, and he finally understands that once-over Louis gave him this morning. Skinny jeans probably weren’t, in retrospect, the best choice for traipsing through the woods in late summer.

Louis drops the two bags of corn, pushing his damp hair back off his forehead. “This won’t take long,” he says, “so you probably want to go ahead and start taking pictures or whatever.”

Louis doesn’t appear to pay him any mind after that, taking a handful of kernels from one of the bags and going down on one knee, setting to work.

Harry stands frozen for a moment taking in his surroundings, what might as well be the same pine tree cloned ad infinitum. He circles the clearing once, snaps a shot of the needles framing the morning sky overhead, another close-up of the sticky bark. Then he’s at a loss, because he doesn’t really want to waste film on a thousand pictures of the same trees he could see on the side of the road.

His attention, inevitably, wanders back to Louis. He’s moved a little, shuffled a few paces along, body draped over one knee while the other digs into the ground. It surprises Harry, somehow, the gentle, methodical way he works- pushing the tip of his index finger into the soil up to the second knuckle, drawing it out- the almost graceful lines of his hand when he plucks a few seeds from the bag and drops them carefully into the hole, the soft sweep of his palm over the ground to press the soil back into place.

Harry doesn’t really think about it- just raises the camera and snaps two shots in quick succession. Louis doesn’t flinch at the noise, too preoccupied with the kind of single-minded focus Harry’d never really pictured him being capable of. Louis’d always been _loud_ , kinetic, the center of everyone’s attention. This quiet, prayer-like ritual leaves Harry feeling distinctly wrong-footed, like he’s blundered into something he has no business seeing.

“There’s a foxhole over that way,” Louis says suddenly, not looking up from his work. Harry jumps, pulse skittering because it feels as if he’s been caught doing something wrong.

“What?” he asks, glad his voice doesn’t squeak, though it’s a near thing.

“A foxhole,” Louis repeats, finally glancing up and meeting Harry’s eyes. He jerks his head to the side, indicating something off the his right. “I don’t know if that’s the kind of thing you need for your project, or...” He trails off, curiously taking in the way Harry’s got the camera pointed right at him. Harry waits, holding his breath, heart pounding, but Louis finally looks away, turning his face back to the ground so Harry can’t quite make out his expression. “Just don’t go too close,” he warns softly. “Don’t want to scare them off.”

The planting really _doesn’t_ take long. It’s been less than half an hour when Louis gets to his feet, brushing his hands off on his thighs and leaving streaks of dirt behind. Harry finally managed to find the foxhole, which would’ve looked like a whole lot of nothing if Louis hadn’t pointed it out, and he’s resorted to taking pictures of tiny bugs in the grass.

The ride back to the trailer is somehow even bumpier than the ride out, but Louis seems more awake at least.

“Thanks for letting me come along,” Harry says, nearly biting his tongue clean off when they hit a particularly vicious pothole. “It’s really gonna help my project a ton.”

“It’s fine.”

That’s about as much as Harry gets out of him before he’s standing in front of his own car, watching Louis wave him off before heading into the taxidermy shop without another word. So things could’ve gone better, probably, but they _did_ go.

* * *

 

 It’s dusk when the game finally starts: the kickoff, the football spiraling high, just a shadow against the pinkgold sunset. Louis stands in the aisle for a moment, watching the arc, the scramble, letting the awed hush of the crowd cushion him while they all wait for the ball to drop.

Then it does, and the game’s truly begun. The bleachers on each side of the field settle to a dull roar, and he turns to climb the stairs to where Niall’s waiting at the very top, standing up on the bench with his hands cupped to his mouth, hollering nonsense.

“It’s the first quarter,” Louis says, standing on the actual concrete so he only comes up to Niall’s chest. “Nothing’s even happening yet.”

Niall leaves off hollering at the field to holler at Louis instead, dropping down off the bench and staggering a step on his bad knee until Louis catches him.

It’s strange to touch people. Almost like he’d forgotten how.

He can’t dwell on it because Niall’s yelling in his ear, not even words, just a long trumpeting scream, mouth close enough that his lips bump Louis’ jaw and heat creeps up his neck.

Niall finally pulls back and claps both hands on Louis’ shoulders, looking him full in the face for a long moment, unaccountably still despite the restless energy pulsing around them in waves keeping time with the countdown clock.

“Knew you’d come,” Niall says finally, one cheek pushed up in a crooked grin. He’s got a patch of stubble on his jaw even.

Like Louis blinked and even Niall Horan grew up. Christ.

Niall pinches Louis’ shirt between his fingers and waggles his eyebrows. “Even remembered the school colors, did ya?”

It takes a second for Louis to laugh and shrug him off, his brain unhelpfully pulling up the image of himself standing bare-chested in his bedroom, staring down at two t-shirts tossed on his bed. Neutral gray or Screaming Devil Blue. Who’re you going to be tonight, Tomlinson? Just a ghost or a ghost of your old self?

He shakes off the drop in his stomach with Niall’s hand, bumping their shoulders awkwardly in some sort of acknowledgment. “Had to guess,” he says, a few beats late, but Niall just laughs anyway.

The noise of the crowd swells before Louis can even realize he’s not sure what to say next, and he and Niall turn in time to see the ball gliding smoothly into the hands of a blue-clad running back who takes off down the field like a tornado, absolutely untouchable.

“Fucking shit,” they breathe in unison when he tears into the end zone and the cannon goes off signalling a touchdown. It’s like the whole stadium swings its head to look at the time clock, did-that-really-just-happen-not-two-minutes-in-Jesus-is-Lord-what-a-boy.

Louis doesn’t even flinch when Niall starts screaming in his ear because he’s screaming right back, and everyone’s screaming, so why wouldn’t he be, what else would he be doing.

Things don’t slow down from there until halftime, a proper shootout because everyone seems to’ve left their defense at home. Louis collapses onto the bench with his hands over his face, scrubbing at his eyes that’ve started watering from nothing more than being so _open_ for so long.

“Gonna get a drink,” he says, nudging Niall’s thigh where he’s still standing and watching the field intently. Louis wonders why, for a moment, until he remember what halftime is, that the field doesn’t actually stay empty.

“Bring me back nachos,” Niall says, waving him off with a grin as the rival school’s marching band enters the field in shaky lines. There’s only about fifty people, but they look sharp in their burgundy uniforms, proud how the light catches the brass buttons up their chests.

Louis thinks about staying to watch, but he’s nearly hoarse already from shouting and Niall’s not much better. It’s not until he’s down the bleachers that he sees the writhing mass of people snaking around the concession stand and nearly halts in his tracks. Too late now, suck it up, breathe it in, join the party. If he keeps his head down it’s just that his neck’s tired from doing stupid dances with Niall in the stands.

And he does, nearly, make it out without being seen, or at least without being recognized. It’s not until he’s up at the counter that he hears the inescapable, “Sweet T!”

But the voice is all wrong, and he looks up to find none other than Harry Styles manning the tick-off register of the little concession stand. And yeah, obviously, there’s the little sign on the wall behind Harry’s head- _All Proceeds Go To The Screaming Devil's Yearbook Committee._

Of course they do. Always have. Louis'd snuck down here enough times to smoke with Zayn behind the concession stand that it seems impossible he could've forgotten.

Harry’s fish-mouthing like he hadn’t meant to say anything at all, and Louis nearly laughs. It’s just Harry Styles. Just. Harry seems to pull himself together, huge grin growing on his face until he’s all dimples, so many teeth he’d scare kids out of a pond.

“How can I help you?” Harry asks brightly, leaning so far forward over the register that Louis can see down the gaping neck of his t-shirt. The material is soft and stretched, and it must be hot in the little kitchen because there are little patches of dark grey under his arms to match the bead of sweat resting on his forehead.

Actually, Louis doesn’t think he’s ever seen Harry’s forehead before. He’s always had those heavy bangs in his face, sweeping them to the side like a model or a little kid depending on the occasion. Never seen him wear a headband like that, so his hair’s pushed back and his jaw and cheekbones stand out that bit sharper.

It’s only when someone behind him clears their throat that Louis realizes he’s just been staring at Harry’s forehead without answering his question.

“A coke,” Louis says quickly, refusing to give Harry the satisfaction of physically shaking off his daze. Harry looks smug enough already, teeth tucked away behind a wide frog-mouthed smirk. “Two cokes. And nachos.”

“That all?” Harry asks, punching a few numbers on the register without looking.

Louis flounders. He's gotten used to seeing Harry out of his element, he guesses, but now things are switched around and he doesn't really know what to do with Harry Styles, comfortable enough to be cocky. “And....”

“And a hotdog,” Harry says, tapping a few more buttons. “And cotton candy.” Tap, tap, tap.

“Okay,” Louis says stupidly, and Harry beams at him, turning away to start assembling a massive box of shit Louis didn’t even want. While Harry’s not looking he pulls out his wallet and quickly counts the bills, back of his neck prickling because he’s not sure he’s actually got enough to pay for all that.

Harry’s back a moment later, little cardboard cup of nachos and goopy bright yellow cheese, hotdog tucked in a checkered box, bag of cotton candy hanging between his fingers and two of the jumbo collector cups filled to the brim clutched somehow in his other massive paw.

“I can’t carry all that,” Louis says, frowning, not even worried for the moment about paying for it.

“I’ll help,” Harry says, shrugging. His eyes are bright, like he's a second away from laughing, and Louis' smiling back even though he feels completely off balance.

“You’re working,” Louis tries to argue, but Harry barrels on and tells him that’ll be five dollars, please and thanks, and Louis narrows his eyes because like hell is all that five dollars.

It happens so fast Louis isn’t even able to process it. One minute Harry’s standing in the concession booth and the next he’s tossed his ketchup-stained apron off and he’s standing next to Louis, holding one of the drinks, the hotdog, and the cotton candy and grinning like he’s won some game they were playing.

“I get a break,” he says by way of explanation, and someone who Louis is surprised to recognize as Anne Styles from the concession stand- “And it’s only eight minutes, too, so don’t run off!”- “You’re up at the top, right? Come on,” Harry presses, walking backwards away from Louis, jerking his head towards the stands.

“You didn’t have to give me free shit,” Louis says once he catches up, keeping a careful few inches between himself and Harry, not that it matters since Harry sways like a pine while he walks, managing to bump Louis’ shoulder no matter what Louis does to dodge it.

Harry shrugs, looking carefully up at the sky, gone properly dark now. “Just paying you back.”

Louis is going to ask what for, but then they’re at the top of the stands and Niall’s shushing them, grabbing the nachos from Louis without ceremony and shoving one in his mouth while he watches the field, full of blue and white uniforms now. Louis almost recognizes the song, but then it slips his mind.

Harry splits the hotdog, tearing it in half with his hands and offering one end to Louis, eyebrows raised hopefully. And Louis takes it, not because it’s Harry Styles and he looks hopeful and happy and lit up under the stadium lights, but because he’s hungry and he (kind of) paid for it, so shut up.

When the game starts back up, Harry gets to stay through maybe half of the third quarter before he bumps his shoulder against Louis’ and jerks his head down toward the concession stand with an apologetic smile. “I’ll see you after?” he says, but it’s a question, his eyebrows raised with tentative curiosity.

Louis nods because he doesn’t know what else to do, and then he’s just watching Harry’s retreating back as he trips his way down the bleachers. He wonders, not for the first time, when Harry Styles got so broad across the shoulders.

“Weird kid,” Niall says absently, eyes still fixed on the game where some penalty is being heatedly debated between the coaches.

Loui' head is still spinning a little too much for him to laugh, so he just just agrees, standing shakily so he’s shoulder to shoulder with Niall. “I guess,” he says, sparing one last glance at the little bit of Harry he can still pick out from the crowd before the whistle blows and the game resumes, Screaming Devils pushed back ten yards.

The fourth quarter goes by in a flash, scoreboard finally breaking away from even with the Devils taking the game by a wide margin. Louis goes to leave when the buzzer sounds, hoping to beat the rush leaving the parking lot, but he’s stopped by Niall’s hand on his elbow.

“Wait a bit,” Niall insists, grinning so easy that Louis sinks back onto the bleachers while the stands empty around them. “This was always my favorite part.” He points Louis to the bottom of the bleachers where the team’s taken a knee, huddled up in front of the last full section of the stands. The band, Louis realizes with a start, squinting to get a better look.

Louis’ heard the Buckhead High Alma Mater more than he ever cares to remember, but there’s something almost hauntingly sweet about it now, echoing over the nearly empty stadium- just the teams left, a few straggling officials, a few parents in the stands- the only noticeable movement belonging to the swooping, darting mosquito hawks outlined against the field lights.

Goosebumps break out over Louis’ arms, and he shivers even though it’s still warm out.

When the song ends with a _roar_ from the team, the spell breaks, everything bursting into motion at once. The band starts breaking down equipment, the players bounce up and head for the fieldhouse, Niall rocks up onto his feet, turning to Louis with the ghost of a complicated smile.

“Never stayed for that part, did you?” He’s teasing, but there’s a weight beneath it. “Don’t think most people even know it happens.”

“It was nice,” Louis says, because he isn’t sure how to phrase the actual feelings banging around inside him. Niall nods, though, like he gets it. Then his eyes dart down to the bottom of the stands, somewhere behind Louis, and he snorts.

“Think someone’s waiting for you.”

Louis _knows_ it’s Harry before he even looks, but it still makes him roll his eyes when he spots him leaning almost-casually against the fence separating the field from the stands.

“He’s persistent,” Louis says.

“One word for it.”

He doesn’t get to ask what that means because Niall’s already bounding down the steps, slight hop to his bad knee. Louis follows, taken by surprise when Niall turns at the bottom and wraps him in a quick hug.

“Let’s do something this week, alright? Call me.”

“Will do,” Louis says, scrunching his face when Niall pats at his cheek with a calloused palm in lieu of actually saying goodbye. Then it’s just Louis and Harry, the stadium lights shutting off with a loud crack.

“You have fun?” Harry asks, sidling up and walking beside Louis as they head for the mostly empty parking area.

Louis opens his mouth to say _it was alright_ , but he can’t stop thinking about how it felt to stand at the top of the bleachers with Niall’s arm around his shoulders, to yell and groan and laugh in time with a whole crowd of people. “Yeah,” he says finally, nodding mostly to himself. “Yeah, it was fun.”

They’ve reached Louis’ truck, so Harry just says, “Good,” smiling wide and taking a step back. “Can I come out again sometime this week? Still need some more pictures for my project.”

Louis hesitates, then relents. They both know it's complete horse shit, but it's not hurting anyone. “Yeah, just call, alright?”

When he climbs in his truck and looks out the window, Harry gives him a little wave.

The drive home is quiet, Louis’ mind whirling too many ways to even bother turning the radio on. He can’t stop thinking about Niall- inviting him to everything, genuinely pleased when he shows up- and Harry, a whole different animal altogether. And he can’t stop hearing his grandpa's voice in his head- _when feeding stray dogs, you can’t offer food with just your fingers. It’s gotta be the whole hand, or you’ll end up hurt._

Lottie is sitting on the front porch painting her nails when he pulls up, screen door wide open and the noise of the television spilling out into the nighthum.

“Where you been?” she asks curiously, flapping her hand to dry the polish. She scoots over a few inches on the step so Louis has room to collapse beside her, aching for a cigarette but unwilling to smoke with any of the girls around.

“Went to the football game.”

Lottie whistles low, eyebrows rising high. “Who put a gun to your head?”

Louis rolls his eyes. “Shut up. I just wanted to go.”

Lottie lets that rest, examining the nails on her unpainted hand before unscrewing the little polish brush and setting to work. “You have fun?”

Harry had asked him the same thing, and it had been a struggle to answer in a way that felt really honest. With Lottie, things are simpler. “I don’t know,” he says, scrubbing a hand through his hair. He could elaborate, but Lottie doesn’t need him to. She hums her acceptance, then makes a frustrated sound.

“You do this hand for me; I’m messing it up.” She holds her hand out to him, shaky streaks of nail polish visible in the porch light. And painting Lottie’s nails is a lot easier than trying to figure out how he feels about Niall, or about Harry, or about being part of things again, so he does that instead.

* * *

 Anne Styles is a clever woman. Harry knows this empirically. What he doesn’t really have a grasp on is when his sister got around to inheriting their mother’s hawk-eyed observatory skills.

When the Skype call bubbles through, she’s sitting with her chin resting in her hand, mouth pulled into a smirk that, personally, he feels he pulls off better. “You seeing somebody?”

Harry splutters, nearly tipping his desk chair over. “What? _Why_ would you even-”

Gemma just looks at him, the same knowing, _if you’re going to bullshit me then I’ll just sit here and wait_ look they both used to dread so much from Anne. Now apparently she’s grown into it and he’s got the whole world against him. Figures.

“I’m not _seeing_ anyone-” Her eyebrows rise, just a fraction, and he huffs. “We’re just hanging out.”

“I’m going to save you the embarrassment and tell you that Cara told Rita who told Nick who told me that you’ve been spending a lot of time with Louis Tomlinson.” The way she says is doesn’t sound like she plans to save him from any sort of embarrassment at all. “How’d you finally manage that after all these years?”

Harry scowls at her through the camera. “I didn’t _manage_ , he just- he’s helping with a project.”

“For what class?” she presses, catty curl of her mouth saying full-well she already knows.

“APenvironmentalscience,” he mumbles quickly, then barrels on before she can comment. “And anyway, we’re- we’re friends, kind of! I sat with him for a little while at the last football game, so-” He sniffs, like he’s just dropped some sort of bombshell of truth.

Gemma doesn’t seem nearly as impressed with him as he’d been with himself for that little maneuver, but she does look faintly surprised. “Well,” she says, then trails off. Her face doesn’t exactly turn serious, but it does gentle. “How is he?”

“He’s really-” Harry wants to say _good_ , but that doesn’t seem quite right. “He’s different, I think, than he was.” He laughs at himself, shrugging. “Not that I’d know, right? You’d probably be able to say better than I can.”

She shakes her head, brushing a stray bit of hair out of her face. It’s such a nostalgically familiar gesture that he aches for a moment, wishes they were younger and she were actually here to talk about this with. Like maybe proximity could be the key to her swooping in and telling him how to fix something he isn’t even sure is wrong.

“I don’t think he really kept up with anyone after graduation. Hard to do in Buckhead, but if anyone’s stubborn enough-” Harry laughs again, startled, and Gemma grins back. “Tell him I said hey, alright? And don’t scare him off.”

“I’m not gonna-”

She levels him with a flat stare, quelling even through the laptop screen. “You can be kind of intense, H.”

Intense is a word for it, probably. “Committed,” he throws back. “Passionate.”

“Zealous. Fanatical.”

Harry sticks out his tongue, changing the subject to Gemma’s roommate’s terrible dishwashing habits before she can think of anything else.

* * *

 

 The thing is.

The thing _is_ , that no matter how many times Louis deletes Instagram and goes to the ballfield at midnight to cleanse his soul or whatever , he always ends up right back here, staring at a picture of Zayn so hard it feels like his eyes might fall out of his head.

It’s black and white ( _pretentious_ , a mean little voice in the back of his head hisses), and there’s a girl. It’s not anything new, and it’s not surprising, and Louis knows that at some point, he’s going to have to grow up and just- _stop_. Stop feeling sick and angry about shit that wasn’t anyone’s fault, stop torturing himself by turning it into something it wasn’t.

There’s a good chance everything would’ve gone wrong anyway, but it certainly didn’t help that the few times Zayn _had_ called or answered the first few months after he left, Louis had always turned into the bitterest, nastiest version of himself. Didn’t mean to, couldn’t help it, couldn’t stop.

He’d been stuck in Buckhead, watching his stepdad leave, trying to plow through physical therapy in the hope that _someone_ somewhere would even consider re-extending a scholarship offer if he could get his knee and shoulder back to even three-quarters of their former glory after the accident- and every time he saw Zayn do anything without him, or heard Zayn’s voice sounding so much _lighter_ than he’d ever been here in Buckhead-

Cooter always told him that if he ever got stung by a catfish, the only way to stave off infection was to find the fish and eat it. But that’s hard to do when the fish is on the West Coast and Louis is less and less sure as time passes that he didn’t just sting himself.

He doesn’t leave the house with the intention of showing up at the bakery, but he ends up sitting in the parking lot anyway. It’s closing time, all the cars gone except for the black Mustang gleaming in the late-evening sun. He can see Harry moving around inside the shop, stacking empty pans and wiping down counters. It takes several minutes to work up his nerve, but eventually he manages, making his way to the front door and rapping his knuckles against the glass a few times.

Harry jumps at the noise, and Louis winces when he slams his head into the counter trying to stand up too quickly. He beams, though, when he spots Louis at the door, hurrying over to unlock it and beckon him inside.

“Sorry,” Harry says, grinning broadly and rubbing at the place he’d hit his head. “I didn’t know you were coming by.”

 _Me neither_ , Louis thinks, but he just shrugs his shoulders nervously. “Sorry if you’re busy-”

“I’m not,” Harry cuts him off quickly, then laughs. “I mean, not really. Just closing up.”

“Right.” Louis shifts, uncomfortable, shuffling his feet while Harry just _looks_ at him. “I was gonna go to Duluth, actually, to Walmart. Didn’t know if you wanted to-”

“Yes.” Harry says it so firmly that it’s nearly funny, would be funny if Louis weren’t so relieved. “Yes, and I can drive, if you want- I just filled up on gas this morning, and-”

It’s a little charming, how eager he is. A little embarrassing, too, has Louis feeling hot in the cheeks, looking up at the ceiling and nodding. “Good, I’ll just- wait outside for you to finish-”

Harry practically rips his apron off, tossing it over the counter and grabbing his keys off a hook on the wall. “I’m done, actually, so we can go now-”

He’s not done. Louis can see a stack of dishes two feet high in the big industrial sink in the back room, spots the mop bucket still full of water in the corner. He decides not to mention it.

The Mustang is almost uncomfortably clean and nice on the inside. Louis feels slightly awkward, like he’s under-dressed for sitting in this car. He doesn’t have time to dwell on it, because as soon as Harry drops into the driver’s seat, he’s twisting around to dig through his backpack in the back floorboard. He makes a small, victorious noise when he finds whatever he’s looking for, righting himself and holding his hand up to Louis’ face, so close it makes his eyes cross.

“Cool, right?” Harry presses, wiggling his fingers in front of Louis’ eyes so the deep blue gem on his right hand catches the light.

“You’ve never been cool, Styles.”

It’s true and it isn’t, all at once. Harry’s always been on that awkward edge of so embarrassingly, earnestly uncool that he could fit in anywhere, which, Louis supposes, is how they even know each other at all. Most sophomores don’t get to hang out with seniors or go to prom or be a part of any of the hundreds of friend-exclusive memories that Louis is just now realizing Harry was always there for- tucked away in the background, but undeniably present.

No wonder Harry seems to think they’re friends. They’ve been in orbit for years.

Louis reaches up, dragging Harry’s hand away from his face so he can inspect the ring at a proper distance. It’s a thick silver band, a tiny horned devil engraved on one side, Harry’s approaching graduation date on the other. Louis never actually got a class ring- he’d gotten the choice between a letterman jacket or a ring, not enough money for both, and the jacket was at least useful. Not that he wears it anymore, or that he’s even looked at it in over a year. It’s shoved up under the seat of his truck, collecting dust along with his old baseball mitt.

Harry’s unnaturally still, and when Louis glances up to check on him he has to press his lips together, thrown off kilter by how intensely Harry’s staring at the place their hands are touching. Louis lets go quickly, clearing his throat and turning to pull his seat belt on.

“A little too fancy for my taste,” he says lightly, then feels unexpectedly guilty, so he softens it with, “Looks nice on you, though.”

Harry slips it off his finger, handing it over, and Louis freezes, staring at the gleaming silver ring in the palm of Harry’s hand.

“There’s an inscription,” Harry explains, correctly interpreting Louis’ mild panic.

“Oh.” He takes the ring out of Harry’s palm, careful not to touch him too much. The letters carved in the smooth inner surface of the ring are tiny, hard to make out. Louis has to squint, holding the ring right up to his eye to read.

It feels a little on-the-nose. Louis'd gone to Sunday school until he turned 11, just like everyone else in Buckhead, so he recognizes the verse just as well as anyone would who'd has Mrs. Johnson as a Sunday school teacher.

Romans 8:18, the one she'd embroidered on a huge banner above the Sunday school door. Her favorite, and one of maybe three verses Louis knows by heart.

_For I reckon that the sufferings of this present time _are_ not worthy _to be compared_ with the glory which shall be revealed in us._

He doesn’t really know what to say to that. He wonders what  _suffering_ means to Harry Styles. He wonders, for that matter, if Harry Styles still goes to church. Louis hasn't been since he started high school, but Harry seems like the type of person who might still go.

Maybe to Harry it's sort of a joke, like high school was the suffering and the illustrious college career he's headed for is the glory. Or maybe Louis is still underestimating him.

Luckily, Harry’s already started driving so Louis is spared trying to turn the inscription into a conversation.

The drive to Duluth isn’t as awkward as part of Louis had been worried it would be. Harry doesn’t protest when Louis changes the radio station every forty-five seconds, and he’s actually really funny in a way that maybe took some getting used to at first- but now Louis can usually pick out what’s a joke and what’s just Harry’s monotone voice. It’s fun, actually.

There's a brief tiff when Harry admits that he _doesn't really plan on going to college_ , which raises Louis' hackles so fast it nearly gives them both whiplash.

"Why'm I helping you with AP shit if you aren't even goin' any-fuckin'-where?" Louis snaps.

Harry seems surprised, shrugging. "I mean, I might go eventually, but like- I like being here," he says, glancing at Louis. Louis' stomach turns, hoping he's reading way too much into that look. "I like working at the bakery."

"Don't be an idiot." Louis sounds exactly like his own mother when he'd been 16 and insisting he was never going to college. He wants to bang his head against the window. "It's not like you lose anything by applying right? You've got the money to send in applications, at least." Louis bites his tongue before he can launch into a condescending and impassioned speech about how _back in my day, I only managed to pay for college applications because the school baseball teams fronted the money._

It's not exactly an argument, so there isn't exactly a resolution. Harry just shrugs again and says, "I guess," which isn't much of an answer at all.

The Walmart parking lot it mostly empty, and Harry grabs a buggy from one of the cart returns, slumping down with his elbows rested on the handle. Louis can hear Jay’s voice in his head- _you keep slouchin’ like that and you’ll be humpbacked before you’re thirty_. He snorts, looking away quickly when Harry gives him a curious glance.

Once they’re inside, they pause, staring at the open fluorescent-lit expanse of aisles. Harry pinches his bottom lip, frowning out at the whole place. “What do you need to get?”

Louis makes an awkward noise, half-laugh and half-squeak. “Uh- nothin’, really. Just kind of wanted to-”

“Okay,” Harry says easily, nodding like that makes perfect sense. Like Louis showing up out of nowhere and asking Harry to drive him a whole town over for no reason is acceptable. “Let’s just go through all the aisles. I can get stuff for my scrapbook.”

And they do go through every single aisle. From Grocery all the way to Garden, they trail along slowly, weaving from shelf to shelf. Harry gets caught up in the boxed baking aisle, frowning at brownie mix like he’s planning on explaining in painstaking detail why it’s better to make them from scratch. They spend too long in the toy section, putting on superhero masks, touching the soft baby toys- Louis finds a foam sword and manages to get a few good whacks across Harry’s broad back before a frowning employee comes jogging around the corner.

They even go down through the sporting goods, yawning their way past expensive tents and weight sets.

“This is your place, right?” Harry asks, nodding the the back wall where the aluminium bats hang near the helmets and gloves.

Louis scrunches his nose up, walking a bit faster. “Not really.”

Harry just hums, still slow as anything. He stops in front of a bright pink bat, pulling it off the wall and holding it in both hands, testing the weight. It’s a child’s bat, so it looks ridiculous in his big hands, and Louis would laugh if he weren’t a beat away from just fucking off entirely.

“Yeah, guess you wouldn’t really get professional batting stuff at Walmart, right?” Harry swings, a clumsy, comical twist of his hips.

“I’m not a _pro_ anything,” Louis points out shortly, jaw tight. “And your form is fucking awful.”

Harry skips right over the acid in his voice, just blinks at him, all heavy eyelids and warm, dimpled smile. “Show me how to do it, then,” he offers, holding the bat out like a peace offering.

Louis balks, hands twitching nervously. It’s like a muscle memory- how he can already feel the exact place the bat would fit against his palms, the heft of it- In the end, he shrugs, grabbing the shopping cart and pulling it along after him, leaving Harry standing behind with the bat still in his hands.

He catches up again a few aisles over in the arts and crafts section. He doesn’t push or ask, just starts droning about ways he might make his scrapbook stand out-

“I figure no one else will use glitter glue-”

“Since you’re not in third grade, I’d say it’s a safe bet-”

“And I’m thinking I want to do some dried local flowers on the front cover-”

“Seems like overkill-”

Harry levels him with a flat stare, mouth pursed into a thin line that barely hides how amused he is. “If you got so many problems with my methods, why don’t _you_ just do the project?”

Louis ducks his head, faux-bashful. “Aww, shucks, Styles. You know lil’ old me never did no AP classes. I’d be _lost_ doing something as AP as a goddamn scrapbook.”

It breaks the slight tension and they both laugh, fighting over which ugly construction paper to buy.

The ride home is dark, and Louis feels worn out in a way he can’t really define, even if it is better than the circles his head had been running before he showed up on Harry’s doorstep.

“So, you don’t have to tell me, obviously, but what happened that brought you into the bakery today?”

He’s been waiting for Harry to ask, wondering if he’d get the guts up to do it. Wondering how he’d answer when he did.

“I just needed to go somewhere,” is what he decides on. When Harry doesn’t say anything, he bites the bullet and goes on. “Zayn posted something on Instagram.” It would be easier to say if it didn’t sound so fucking stupid, even in his own head.

The noise Harry makes is the verbal equivalent of a question mark. “I don’t-”

“We don’t talk anymore.” He says it quickly, like tearing off a band-aid. “We haven’t talked in a long time.”

Harry takes a moment to process that, and in that time Louis happens to glance at the speedometer.

“ _Jesus_ fucking Christ, Styles, slow the hell down!” He nearly screeches it, hand flying up to clutch at the dash.

The car jerks, just slightly, from Harry being caught off guard, and then he eases up off the gas until they’re going somewhere remotely near the speed limit.

“What the _fuck_?” Louis snaps, heart hammering. There's a phantom spasm in his shoulder, his knee. “You’re gonna get yourself killed driving like that. It’s dark as sin and there are deer all in these woods-” He has to catch himself, voice and breathing ramping up towards hysteria.

“I’m sorry,” Harry says, sincere and wide-eyed. His knuckles are turning white from gripping the wheel. “I’m sorry, it’s just how I drive-”

Louis forces himself to breathe, closing his eyes and counting to ten, listening to the quiet steady hum of the road beneath them. “It’s fine,” he says once he’s sure he won’t break out yelling again. “It’s fine, just- slow down, alright? It’s dangerous.”

“Okay,” Harry agrees immediately, slowing the car even more. Speed limit on the dot, when Louis checks the dash again. When the moment passes, Harry blows out a shaky breath before asking, “So did you have a fight? With Zayn?”

If it were that easy- fights, Louis has found, are fixable. People eventually stop being mad; they forget or they just move on. “No, it wasn’t like that,” he says carefully. Because it’s not like they _didn’t_ fight; it was just that the fighting was more like a symptom of something worse. “We just drifted, I guess. I don’t know. The point is, we don’t talk. And usually it’s fine, but sometimes-”

“He was your best friend,” Harry says, so _sincere_ again, so sure things will work out. “I’m sure if you just talk to him-”

“Hard to talk to someone when they won’t pick up the phone.”

Without missing a beat, Harry asks, “You or him?” and it hits like a slap across the face.

Instead of making Louis mad, it just makes him even more tired. “Both.”

Harry’s mercifully quiet for the rest of the ride, thoughtful tilt to his mouth. When he drops Louis off at his truck in front of the bakery, he leans over across the passenger seat to look up at Louis outside the door.

“Can I come by this weekend? For the scrapbook?”

Louis is surprised at how relieved he feels that Harry still wants to be around him. “Sure thing, Styles. We’ll pick some flowers for your book.”

* * *

 When the bell rings above the bakery door near closing time, Harry knows himself too well to be surprised by how much he wants it to be Louis. It isn’t. It’s a young man with dark hair doing its best to grow back post-buzzcut, a beard valiantly making the same effort along his jaw. He’s staring wide-eyed at the pastry case, mouth popped open into the most amazed little “o” a human mouth could possibly make, and Harry’s never seen him before so he must be a tourist passing through en route to Florida. In spite of that, Harry likes him instantly.

“Hiiiii,” he chimes, grinning. “I’m Harry. Are you just passing through? We get a lot of business from that sign on the interstate-”

“Oh!” The man laughs, cutting him off. When he smiles, his eyes squint up, and Harry likes him even more. “I’m Liam- and no, I actually- well, I used to live on the army base in Duluth, actually, but now I live with the Tomlinsons. And before that I lived in-”

“The Tomlinsons?” Harry asks, internally grimacing at how rude he’s being. “Like, Jay Tomlinson? Louis Tomlinson?”

“Yeah!” Liam beams, like they’re the greatest people in the world, which- “I’m actually to pick up a cake for Cooter’s birthday. I live in his house,” he adds, matter-of-fact.

“Huh,” Harry says, because he can’t think of anything else to say. He’s just surprised he didn’t _know_ that some army guy had moved into-

“You’re Harry, right? Louis is helping you with that project. He never stops talking about those muffins he got from here a while back- do you have any around?” Liam babbles, raking his eyes over the case while Harry’s chest puffs up, pleasantly surprised that Louis’ mentioned him. Even if it was just about the project and the muffins.

“I’ll see if we have any in the back.” He knows they do, because he pulled the last four out of the case to sneak home for himself. He’s willing to part with them for the sake of Louis, though. He grabs the wrapped up parcel containing Cooter’s birthday cake as well, bagging the muffins and tying them neatly on top. “Alright, looks like Mrs. Jay already paid for the cake, so you’re all set.”

Liam hesitates, one hand already inching towards the bag of muffins. “How much are these?”

“On the house,” Harry says, winking. “As long as you make sure Louis gets one, alright?”

Liam blinks once, surprised, before nodding dutifully like he’s committing the instruction to memory. “Thanks, Harry! I’ll tell him you said hi!”

Weird, Harry thinks, but nice. He thinks, if he focuses hard enough, he can almost remember being introduced to Liam on Labor Day at some point before everything started swimming, but then the memory of the hangover the next day washes anything else right out of his head and he winces.

* * *

 

 “You’re gonna have to help me push this out if you’re bringing all that shit with us,” Louis grunts, jerking his head towards Harry’s backpack while he heaves his own trawling gear into the boat.

It’s a Friday, and Harry’s fresh off his first real run-in with Cooter Tomlinson, who’d called him “boy” and looked at him like he wasn’t anything particularly impressive. Louis would’ve felt bad for him if Cooter hadn’t given Louis a wink when Harry’s back was turned.

Harry’s staring at the boat with a deep sort of misgiving that probably comes from how it looks more like half a rusty tin can than a “boat” really, but he’ll need to get over that fast if he doesn’t want to be left behind.

Harry eventually gets himself together, heaving his backpack into the jon boat and bending down beside Louis to help push it down the sucking muddy bank and into the water. Louis is surprised at how easily the work goes with the two of them pushing together, and then he’s scrambling into the boat while Harry blinks at him balefully from the soggy shore.

“Your feet are gonna get wet one way or another, Styles.” He dips an oar into the water, flicking a small spray towards Harry. “Might as well be now.”

Harry heaves a very long-suffering sigh before grimacing and stepping into the shallows, boots squelching in the red-sand mud. His mouth drops open, apparently disgusted by the feel, and Louis rolls his eyes. “I _told_ you to go barefoot-”

“You also _bragged_ to me about how many tetanus shots you’ve had to get from stepping on rusty shit in this stupid- _ugh_.” Harry throws himself into the boat with more force than is strictly necessary or wise, and brown water rushes over one edge and into the bottom around their feet.

Louis snorts. “Well, now look what you’ve done.”

Harry scowls, holding his bookbag in his lap and examining the contents for water damage. He’s unbearably funny, sometimes, when he isn’t trying. He finally manages to pull his camera out, fiddling with who-knows-what while Louis leisurely rows them towards the crawdad traps spaced along the pond edges. Harry takes a few pictures but mostly he just _looks_ , eyes rolling curiously from one tree to the next, following the ripples on the water’s surface, tracing a hawk through the sky.

A long space of quiet passes while he watches Louis work, occasionally snapping shots of the thin wire mesh traps filled with tiny wriggling crustaceans.

Louis knows Harry’s about to speak because he takes a deep breath like he has to mentally prepare himself. “We talked about the sublime in English yesterday.” There’s the slightest pause before “English” where Louis can hear Harry physically stop himself from saying “AP.” He smirks.

“Ohhh, the sublime,” Louis says sagely, nodding as he dips his oar lazily into the water and pushes them forward. “From the two principal parts- sub and lime-”

Harry honks a laugh before peering over his shoulder to frown at Louis, though it’s not very effective when he’s still laughing. “You know it isn’t-”

“Sub, of course, you’ll be familiar with-”

The boat nearly tips when Harry tries to turn around too quickly, launching himself the lean foot between them to slap a hand over Louis’ mouth. “Louis! Just- _listen_!” he pleads, red-faced and glowing in the afternoon light, dimples cutting his cheeks like hollers.

“Alright!” Louis’ holding his oar over his head with both hands, trying to balance the rocking boat so his grandpa doesn’t end up dredging the pond for the it and their bodies when Harry gets them both drowned. “ _Jesus_ , Styles, sit down, you’re going to tip us!”

Harry huffs, sitting back and facing away from Louis again, watching the ripples break the brown surface. “It’s just that it doesn’t mean what, like- it’s not what I thought it was.”

“Call the newspaper,” Louis mutters, and grins when Harry’s head snaps around to glare at him again.

Harry’s quiet another moment, craning his head around to look up at the branches overhanging the shallows, casting spotty shadows on the water. “It’s like. I always thought it was kind of like- oh, here’s one thing, but oh wait, it’s actually something else.” Harry’s voice sounds strange carrying over the water, echoed back soft like the pond’s singing at them.

“Fascinating.” As sarcastic as he sounds, Louis’ not uninterested. It’s nice, having someone out here to talk to, even if he’s got no idea what Harry’s trying to say yet.

But they’ve got time, he guesses, brushing the oar against the bank to send them back into the deeper water, keep them from beaching here where the banks are mud and reeds and impossible to walk up.

“But it’s actually, like-” Harry pauses, but he’s always pausing. All the time in the world, Louis reminds himself when he starts to feel impatient. “It’s actually like, you’re standing next to a mountain...”

There aren’t many mountains in the lowlands. There aren’t _any_ mountains in the lowlands, but Louis lets his eyes slipped closed anyway, pulling the oar into the boat and resting it over his thighs, picturing it. A mountain. Himself next to a mountain. So far from here that there are mountains, and he’s next to one, and it’s looming over him, not a hint of swamp, not a hint of clay, a mountain. Snow on the top. He’s never seen snow either.

“And?” he prompts after more than a moment when Harry still hasn’t said anything.

He opens his eyes to find Harry turned around again, their knees almost touching, watching him like the inside of Louis’ head is a movie he snuck into.

“And that’s it,” Harry says simply, shrugging one shoulder. “You’re standing next to a mountain, and you’ve never seen one, and you never knew a thing could be that big. And even though it’s right in front of you, and it’s real, and it’s there, you still can’t know it. Not really.”

Something about the way Harry’s looking at him, like he’s just told him a secret. Like he’s waiting on Louis to say, _oh, yes. It’s just like that_.

Louis looks away quickly, scrubbing a hand through his hair so his choppy bangs fall over his face.“I can’t wait to get home and look in the dictionary so I can find out you’re lyin’ right to my face, Harry Styles.”

“I’m _not_ ,” Harry insists, leaning forward like it’s important, eyes big and intense and right in Louis’ face, too close. “It’s just like that. Like you thought something was something, and then you realize you’ll never know what it is, because- there’s just _too much_ of it.”

All Louis can do is look away again, grab the oar and jab it back into the water. “Sounds disappointing.”

Harry lets out a long breath. Shifts back so he’s sitting up again. Looks out at the water, to the far bank. Says, “It’s not,” so fervently that Louis’ embarrassed for him, and he doesn’t even know why.

* * *

 

  
The beginning of October is full of surprises. The first is Anne waking Harry up early Saturday morning, kissing his forehead as he blinks blearily and she lists off about a billion instructions, only pausing when he mumbles, “what” about as stupidly as anyone’s ever said anything.

Anne purses her lips, not annoyed with him but not amused either. “We’re filming the new season of the cooking show over the next two weeks, Harry, I told you-”

His brain catches up and he struggles into a sitting position, trying in vain to pull up his mental calendar. “That’s now?”

“ _Yes_ , it’s now,” she says, rolling her eyes. “I expect you to call me every night, understand? And help with the bakery as much as you can while I’m gone. And no parties. And no drinking.”

“Mom,” Harry croaks, best angelic look in place. “I would _never_.”

“And no _lying_ ,” Anne laughs, swatting at him. “I can handle it when I’m home, but when I’m not here to catch you at it I get nervous.”

“Do you need help loading up the car?” he asks, making to get out of bed, but she just shakes her head.

“Already taken care of. Just be safe.”

Once he’s ushered her outside and watched her leave, Harry slumps back in towards his room, planning to get another eight hours of sleep if no one’s home to shame him for it.

Then the second big surprise of October hits him in the form of a text message from Louis.

_u busy? wanna show u something_

It’s so unexpected that Harry triple-checks Louis’ contact in his phone to make sure he hasn’t accidentally assigned the name to someone else. But it is Louis, and he’s actually asking Harry to do something, and Harry nearly breaks his fingers trying to type back a reply as quickly as possible.

* * *

 

 Harry’s gotten so used to seeing Louis in the half light of late nights at the bakery and early mornings before school, that finally seeing him out in the afternoon sun is a bit of a slap in the face. He’s all gold. The bright sunwarmed crown of his head; gold. Bare, freckled shoulders; gold. Clay-stained feet kicking through the high-burnt scratch of grass; gold, again.

He’s hard to look at, sometimes. Harry’d almost forgotten- or rather, he’d never even known, not like this.

“You’re awful quiet today, Styles. Too hot out for you?”

Teasing lilt of his voice; gold.

“Just thinking,” Harry tells him, pitching his volume higher because Louis’ a few paces ahead, swinging a long stick through the grass. Maybe it’s to ward off snakes, maybe he just likes the noise. The bone-and-muscle of his back roll beneath the skin, fascinating, gold.

So far AP Lit hasn’t prepared Harry for this sort of thing. Maybe it _is_ too hot out.

Louis carelessly tosses a grin over his shoulder, letting their eyes catch for a second before he turns back to the path he’s clearing. “Well don’t wear yourself out before we even get there. You’re useless half the time anyway without being tired.”

Harry makes a vague noise of disagreement, but he lets himself smile anyway. His cheeks already feel hot, and he’ll be feeling it even more when he crawls into bed tonight, sunraw skin against the cool pillow. He’s almost looking forward to it, how tired he’ll be after a whole day of following Louis wherever he’s taking them. No bakery, no cars, no constraints on their time.

 _Anything could happen,_ he thinks, perking up when Louis makes a soft noise ahead of him.

It’s railroad tracks. _The_ railroad tracks, the ones that cut through the center of town. Only they’re nowhere near the center of town, and Harry realizes with a start that he never considered the fact that the railroad doesn’t stop at the treeline, that it keeps on going far beyond the confines of Buckhead.

Louis hopskips up onto the tracks, balancing heel-to-toe on the iron bar and doing a flourishing spin until he’s facing Harry head-on, arms spread wide. “Here we are!”

Harry looks around, eyes following the tracks until they disappear into the woods on either side of the wide grass field. He doesn’t see much of anything, unless Louis brought him all the way out here _just_ to see the railroad tracks. Epiphany aside, that’s a little lackluster.

“Almost,” Louis amends defensively, seeing the underwhelmed look on Harry’s face. “Jesus, Styles, way to kill the mood.”

“What mood?” Harry asks curiously, stepping up onto the tracks. He doesn’t bother trying to balance on the rail, because he’s sure that a) it would be a lot more difficult in boots than it would be barefoot and b) Louis would just push him off. Instead, he makes a game of stepping on every other wooden slat, trailing beside Louis as he tightropes towards the woods.

Louis is distinctly unimpressed. “Adventure,” he says dryly, reaching over to shove at Harry’s shoulder so he stumbles halfway off the tracks and into the brush again. “This is all that _Walden_ , Thoreau shit you love, but real life. Pretend you’re Walt Whitman or something. Buck up.”

Harry means to respond, but he hears something in the woods. A rushing, far-off sound. He frowns ahead, trying to listen better, trying to understand what he’s hearing.

“It’ll come to you,” Louis says, and there’s a sly smile on his lips, like he’d planned this.

“Is that...” Harry starts, then stops, brows furrowing. “That can’t be the river,” he says incredulously, because _how_. Surely they haven’t walked that far? Harry’s only ever been to the river where it nears the road, where they’d met on Labor Day.

The river, like the railroad, is apparently content to exist outside the realm of Harry’s explicit knowledge and understanding. Who’d have thought.

“Very good, Harry! That environmental science class is really paying off, huh?” Louis’ laughing, bright-faced, rushing towards the treeline so quickly that Harry’s sure he’s going to slip off the rail and bust his ankle.

Harry follows after, skipping over the wood slats and feeling, suddenly, like something important is about to happen. It’s the strangest thing, like his skin’s singing, like every hair on his body is standing on end, trying to reach forward through time to something that’s close, and good, but not quite there yet.

They break through the treeline at nearly the same moment, the sun giving way to heavy green overcast, and for the first time all day Harry’s sweat finally starts cooling him instead of just sitting on his skin like an extra layer of insulation. He wants to check if Louis is still gold, even in the dappled light of the woods, but the river catches his attention first. It’s wider here than he ever knew it could be, and it’s fast, breaking in white caps around the cement legs of the railroad bridge.

It’s the same muddy brown water, but darker and deeper and new, somehow. The banks sloping down are covered in thorny weeds and the delicate white flowers that mark sticker bushes, but Louis doesn’t hesitate before sliding down the embankment, one hand on the steep slope to brace himself.

He reaches the bottom and stumbles, rolling into the beer-brown shallows, and when he looks up at Harry his face is shocked. They look at each other for a moment, mouths hanging open, before they both laugh, startled and delighted.

By the time Harry’s gracelessly picked his way down the bank, Louis’ sitting with just his feet resting in the water, wiggling his toes at the little schools of minnows darting around.

“Give that routine an 8 out of 10,” Harry says brightly, a little breathless from slip-sliding through the undergrowth.

“Give your mother an 8 of 10,” Louis shoots back, rolling his eyes. Harry makes a disgusted noise but settles beside him anyway, kicking his boots off and tossing them back up to drier ground.

“So this is the big thing you wanted to show me?” Harry asks after they’ve sat paddling their feet in silence for a while, listening to the water and the birds and the wind.

Louis hums, tilting his head back and blinking up at the canopy of leaves high overhead. “I didn’t say it was a big thing. I just said I wanted to show you something.” He pulls his feet from the water, flexing them and leaving indents in the sand. “I like it here.”

It is nice. It’s shady and secluded and it feels impenetrable, like no one could ever find it if they weren’t led to it. Harry follows Louis’ example and scoots back up the bank, out of the water. “I like it, too.”

Louis stands and turns away, ostensibly to find the cause of the scuffling noises in some bushes a way down the bank, but Harry catches the upturn of his lips anyway. Louis seems truly distracted by whatever he’s looking for, so Harry gets to his feet as well, ambling towards the underside of the bridge. It’s even cooler underneath, like a concrete cave. Like a secret, Harry thinks, and then his eyes adjust to the low light and he realizes that it is a secret.

On the support wall of the bridge, hidden from the light, from the tracks, from anyone who might float by on the river, there’s a graffiti mural. The quality varies, like people of different skill-levels had added to it, or maybe like one person had worked on it progressively over several years, getting better as time passed. It’s all skulls and flowers, a big banner with LOVE crossed out and then sprayed again in slightly better handwriting. The oldest piece is a pair of initials, tucked right in the center of all the chaos.

_ZM + LT_

It’s not in a heart and there’s no _4ever_ scrawled underneath, but it knocks Harry back a step anyway, because _of course._ The railroad and the river and this. Things Harry’d never even considered. Things that made perfect sense anyway.

“We don’t talk anymore,” Louis had said, the memory cutting through Harry’s brain while he's busy mentally refiling about a thousand little moments he’d seen but not processed when he was sixteen.

Harry whirls, wide-eyed, wondering if he wasn’t meant to find this. It feels as if he’s intruded. It feels, actually, exactly the way it feels to walk into a church when there’s no service in session. “Sorry-”

Louis is standing _right there_ , watching Harry watch him with a curious sort of distance in his eyes. “It’s fine,” Louis cuts him off, shrugging one sunburnt shoulder. His shirt is still a little wet from the river, the cutoff sleeves fraying. “It’s not like it’s a secret or anything. Just some stupid paint under a bridge.”

He doesn’t _sound_ like it’s just some stupid paint under a bridge, and he’s tight-lipped, hands fisted by his sides. Harry carefully looks out over the water, like he could care less about the mural or what it means. What it meant.

“It’s beautiful,” he says anyway, because he can’t just leave it alone. Not when his head’s spinning around it. “I never realized he was that good. He was always really- like, how none of us even knew he did art until graduation when they announced he was going off to school in California. It’s just weird that I didn’t know.”

“You weren’t friends,” Louis points out, stepping into the deeper shade of the bridge, not quite near Harry, but not quite far away either. “There’s no reason you would’ve known.”

“Small town,” Harry says, shrugging, distinctly aware that they aren’t entirely talking about Zayn’s art. “He was good, though,” he says again, because he doesn’t know what else to say.

Louis glances at the mural, eyes raking over the mass of twisted lines and layered colors. “Yeah,” he says finally, looking away. “He was good.”

* * *

 

October has one more trick up its sleeve.

It happens on the first truly cold night of the season, that strange stretch of early October where the weather seems to forget, for a week or so, where exactly it is. It’s late, and Harry’s not _tired_ , but he’s a little dazed- spent the evening melting into one of the old movie theater seats in Duluth with Cara and Annie on either side, bucket of greasy popcorn in his lap and a spotty showing of something mindnumbingly explody flickering on the big screen.

Stumbling out into the dark street leaves him a little disoriented, that sense of displacement when you walk in somewhere during the day and come back out to the sun well down. Cara and Annie trail beside him out to his car, rolling their eyes when he reminds them he has to get home at a reasonable time so he can wake up early enough to go meet Louis.

“I’m surprised you’re still committed to this whole thing,” Cara says, not meanly. It still stings a little when she pops the cigarette out of her mouth to add, “You’re usually bored with people by now.”

Harry frowns, crossing his arms over his chest defensively and leaning away from the trail of her smoke. “I don’t get _bored_ ,” he insists, resting his hip against the driver’s side.

Annie snorts. “Yeah, you just forget about them for a while.”

That more than stings, because Harry can’t shake the way Louis’d looked a few weeks back, worn out and a little lost when he’d first said _we don’t talk anymore_.

The girls must notice something off in his face because they relent, Cara pressing up warm against his side and wrapping an arm around his middle. “We’re kidding, H. We just can’t believe he still lets you hang around, is all.” Her face splits into that wide, ridiculous grin that hasn’t changed since they were babies in nursery together, and Harry just tips his head back to stare at the sky, like he’s asking the stars what he did to deserve all this.

“Get home, old man.” Annie pulls Cara away, backing towards her own bright orange eco-friendly minicar. “We’ll see you Monday at school, alright?”

He waves them off before slinging himself into the driver’s seat. It’s a forty-five minute drive, but he can make it in thirty if he’s lucky. He cranks the music up to keep himself awake, and then sets off due south for Buckhead.

It’s like watching an old projector movie where the reel skips- empty road; second of blackness; something in the headlight beam, shapeless; second of blackness; the road, obscured by a spiderweb of broken glass; second of blackness; steam or smoke or fog. The trees immobile on both sides, yellow lines in the center of the road unblurred, a stillness so sudden and heavy it hurts.

Seatbelt a strangling, breaking pressure across his chest and ribs. Can’t feel the pain of it yet, just the _stop_ of it.

His brain pieces the sounds together before the visuals can retroactively arrange themselves in his head. Wind whipping through the open window. Quiet night noise of the car engine humming. Loudest sound he’s ever heard. Metal crunching, or bone. Something like a scream. Oddly aware of the comparatively quiet sound of his phone sliding off the seat and being thrown to the floorboard.

It takes an impossible amount of time for him to fully comprehend what’s happened.

Rounding the corner too fast. Deer in the road. Louis’ voice in his head- _you’re going to get yourself killed driving like this_. Remembers Louis’ hand clutching the OS bar. Louis’ not here. Deer in the road, too fast, car slammed to a stop, windshield cracked, chest and neck screaming in pain, phone in the floorboard, awful animal noises from the front of the car, one of the headlights bleeding light onto the pavement, the other dimmed but still illuminating smoke from the engine or maybe huffs of breath from the deer.

Opening the door is difficult. Harry’s hands and brain seem to be on separate wavelengths. Or his hands are shaking too much, or he can’t quite keep his eyes on any one thing, or-

It’s worse, infinitely, when he pulls himself to his feet, steadied by the car frame while he stares at the wreck of metal and animal, broken glass and black liquid and inside things in outside places. He thinks he should turn the car off. He wishes his ears would stop ringing, or that they’d ring louder so he wouldn’t have to hear the noises coming from the front of the car.

When he ducks back into the driver’s seat to pull the key from the ignition, he spots his phone on the floor and reaches for it- drops it twice again before he can get a proper hold on it, clutching it so tightly it feels like the screen should shatter in his palm.

He walks off the road, into the ditch, and hits the call button, the inside of his head an empty confused screaming sort of silence that he can’t imagine he’ll ever be able to put words to.

Louis’ voice is sleepheavy when he answers, sheets rustling in the background, and Harry can picture him, face smushed against his pillow, staring blearily at his phone screen while his eyes try to adjust to the light. He croaks a _hello?_ so soft that Harry’s heart pulses, and that’s what makes him realize it’s been racing in his chest.

He doesn’t know what to say. His head’s still spinning and the burning smell is stronger than ever, and his car keys are still clutched in the hand not holding his phone.

“Harry?” Louis tries again, sounding a little more awake now, more rustling like he’s sitting up, sheets sliding down his chest and pooling at his waist. “What’s wrong?”

It’s very strange, actually, that Harry isn’t crying, because his whole body feels like it wants to cry more than it wants to breathe. His own voice sounds eerily, horribly calm when it answers Louis a moment later. “Can you come pick me up? I wrecked my car.”

The silence on the other end of the line lasts just the amount of time it takes the human brain to process speech, and then there’s an explosion of movement, fabric swishing and thumps and Louis’ voice, carefully calm, asking, “Where are you, H? Are you alright?”

“I’m-” Harry starts, and then isn’t sure how to finish. “I’m near Honey Creek.”

“Have you called 911?” Louis asks, sounding slightly out of breath. A door slams and then there’s the sound of his truck sputtering and then roaring to life. “I can be there in fifteen minutes.”

“Okay. I haven’t.”

“That’s alright,” Louis tells him, and Harry can hear his radio playing quiet in the background of the call. “Just talk to me for a little while, okay? How was the movie?”

It takes several moments of dizzying thought for Harry to remember that he’d gone to see a movie, that that’s why he’d been out in the middle of nowhere, driving back from Duluth. “I- it was nice.”

“What was it about?” presses Louis, and he keeps talking until Harry can hear the shush of tires on the road. Headlights round the corner, throwing everything into sharp relief, and Harry has to squint against the brightness.

The truck slows to a stop a few feet away and Louis slides out of driver’s side. He’s staring at the wreck of Harry’s car like he expects Harry to still be in it, so Harry tries to call out to him. It ends up as a strangled sound in the back of his throat, but it gets Louis’ attention anyway. His head snaps around, eyes darting over everything until he spots Harry sitting on the bank of the ditch, phone still pressed to his ear.

“Fucking Christ,” Louis swears under his breath, voice shaky. All the calm he’d had during their phone call seems splintered in person, but that could just be Harry’s brain. Louis jogs over to him, dropping to a crouch and staring into Harry’s eyes intently, like he’ll be able to rewatch the whole thing if he tries hard enough. “Are you hurt?”

“I don’t think so.” Harry turns his head experimentally, winces a bit. Moves his arms and legs. Winces a bit. “Not real bad,” he amends.

“Okay.” Louis nods, then repeats himself. “Okay,” he says, standing up and turning towards the mangled bones of Harry’s car. “Jesus fucking Christ.” He picks his way across the mess of glass and metal until he’s in front of Harry’s car, staring down at the carcass.

At some point, the deer stopped making noises, which Harry’d been reluctantly thankful for. Now it just leaves him feeling hollow, insides echoing.

Louis walks off to the other side of the road, and Harry can just make out the sound of him talking on his phone, telling someone where they are and what’s happened. When he comes back, he looks a little pale, but mostly alright.

“Come on, get up now,” he says, reaching down and getting a shoulder under Harry’s arm, carefully helping him to his feet. “Can’t sit here all night.”

“Where’re we going?”

Louis leads him over to the truck, opening the passenger door and bundling Harry inside, hands brushing over his sides and knees like he’s making sure Harry’s all there. “Taking you to see the world’s best nurse. Just sit tight for a minute.” Louis shuts the truck door as gently as a truck door can possibly be shut, and then Harry watches him run back to the wreck, ducking in front of Harry’s car.

When Louis gets back to his feet, he’s got the bulk of the mangled deer on his shoulders, dragging it around behind his own truck to drop it, opening the tailgate. Harry closes his eyes while the truck rocks under the weight of the deer carcass being hefted into the bed. The sound of it makes him nauseous.

Louis climbs into the driver’s seat a moment later, jacket discarded so he’s in just a sleeveless white t-shirt. He must be freezing, but Harry can see the trail of black blood on the pavement where the deer was dragged, and he’s selfishly glad Louis left his jacket in the back.

His hands are still stained a rusty red in the dim cab light, but Harry looks at his own knees, focusing on breathing evenly while Louis starts up the truck and carefully turns it 180 degrees to head home.

“Sorry,” Louis says after a few minutes, watching the road ahead of them carefully. “About bringing the- I’d have to come back and get it anyway, because we’ve got that contract with the county to handle all the roadkill.” His mouth twists unhappily on the last word, and Harry lets out an unsteady breath.

“I’m sorry I woke you up.”

The scoff Louis lets out is almost enough to make Harry laugh. “As long as you’re alright,” says Louis, reaching across the truck cab and resting a hand on Harry’s knee, squeezing lightly. “We’ll get everything handled. You’re alright.”

 _Everything_. Fuck, Harry thinks, because there’s so much more than- than the deer, the horror of that. There’s his destroyed car, and calling his mom while she’s up in Atlanta, and how he’s going to get home, and how he’s ever going to drive again when he can’t even look out the passenger window without the urge to vomit rising in him like a wave.

* * *

 

 Harry’s been far too quiet for Louis’ liking, but he’s having enough trouble tamping down his own panic that he can’t even begin trying to parse however Harry’s dealing with this. He just keeps flashing back to that moment the bent wreck of Harry’s car came into view around the bend in the road, the sleek black front end mashed into a nearly unrecognizable heap. Even though he’d literally been speaking to Harry on the phone as he saw it, he’d immediately thought the absolute worst, stomach icing over.

His heart’s still pounding in his chest when they get to the Tomlinson property, pulling into the front yard and setting the pen of beagles howling.

Harry gets out of the truck slowly, like he’s still testing his limbs. Louis takes a brief second to stare at the sky and thank god his mother is a very skilled nurse, and that she’s already standing on the porch in her bathrobe, holding the screen door open and beckoning them inside.

She’s so calm that Louis feels better just seeing her, her hair pulled back into a frayed bun and her face kind but focused as she leads Harry into their kitchen, pulling out a chair and gently pressing him into it. Louis stands awkwardly in the doorway while she checks Harry over, shining a light in his eyes, feeling his ribs and poking and prodding until she’s satisfied.

“We’ll take you to the hospital for a proper check-up tomorrow, baby. You’re alright, but you’re gonna be sore as hell come morning.” Her voice is so steady and homey that Louis feels his throat go tight. “You can take Lou’s room for tonight, and one of us’ll drive you tomorrow, okay? And you’d better call your mama.”

“Thank you, ma’am,” Harry says, polite as ever. He’s so pale that he looks like he’s going to be sick, but Jay just gives him a glass of water and tells him to drink it slow.

When she leaves the kitchen, Louis follows a step behind, ready to ask about a billion questions before she turns and wraps him in her arms. He melts into it right away, breathing out heavily and burying his face in her shoulder.

“He’s fine, Lou. He’s gonna be bruised to hell and miserable for a few weeks, but for now he’s just a little shocked.” She rocks them back and forth for a moment before letting Louis go, stepping away and yawning. “Too much excitement for me on my night off. Wake me up if you need anything.” She turns to go, but then looks back again, pursing her lips. “He’s _fine_ ,” she says again, more forcefully, and Louis laughs, scrubbing his hands over his face.

“I know, I know, I’m just- you should’ve seen it, Mama.”

He hadn’t realized how upset he was until the word slipped out. He hasn’t called her that since he was a very small child, as far as he can remember, and she seems to be thinking the same thing. She pats his cheek fondly and says, “ _Fine_ ,” again, so fervently that Louis has to believe her.

She goes to bed, leaving him to face returning to the kitchen alone.

Not feeling up to it quite yet, he eases out the front door, deciding to take care of the carcass before he figures out how to take care of Harry. He has vast amounts of experience with dead deer. He has next to no experience with traumatized rich kids.

It does calm him, handling this one thing he knows better than most anyone else. He moves on autopilot, deft and quick, sure, heaving the carcass from the truck and hauling it to the taxidermy shed. It’s too mangled to be much good for anything- organs busted up so the meat’s spoiled, coat shredded and ruined.

He ends up stripping it for the beagles, mind detached from the work so he doesn’t have to think much about what his hands are feeling.

The head catches his eye- one beautiful, branching horn and one stunted single spike. Even the rack is a disappointment, lopsided, the kind of thing most hunters shoot just to get it out of the gene pool.

Louis’ jaw ticks, eyes skimming away from the cull-buck’s horns. He’ll keep them, he decides, polish and preserve them. Maybe give them to the twins for noise-makers, but that’s a problem for later. Once he’s done all he can feasibly do in one night, he gathers his guts to face the walk back to the trailer, to the kitchen where he finds Harry still sitting in the same rickety chair, hands shaking in his lap.

Louis enters the kitchen slowly, propping himself against the door frame when he catches Harry’s eye.

“How you feeling, big boy?” He tries a smile but it twists not-quite-right, leaves him grimacing.

Harry looks down at his hands, then back up at Louis, half-shrugging one slumped shoulder. “Probably felt better.”

“You tired?” Louis asks, praying the answer is yes because his heart hasn’t stopped hammering since he got back in the house. He doesn’t know what to do with Harry like this, doesn’t know how to help him. He should, but he doesn’t.

It takes a moment for Harry to decide, chewing his lip while his eyes wander, glassy. “Yeah,” he says, finally. “Yeah, I think...” He trails off, glancing down at his trembling hands like he’s just noticed. He flexes his fingers like that’ll make it stop, and Louis wants to tell him it won’t, but he doesn’t.

“My room’s this way,” Louis prompts, stepping backwards out of the kitchen and tipping his head in the direction of the single hallway that leads through the rest of the trailer. “Right at the end.”

Harry gets to his feet, following along. He never looks graceful, really, but now he looks jittery, ready to shake apart at the smallest thing. Louis loans him a shirt and clean shorts, apologizes for his sheets being not-exactly fresh, and then bolts as quickly as he can without being rude. “Yell if you need me,” he says, and means it, but he still bolts.

The next morning is a slow chaos. Harry’s bruised all over, and even though the doctor clears him to go home by himself, he sends along a prescription of low-grade painkillers. Louis drops Harry at the Styles’ house, the driveway uncomfortably naked with the absence of Anne’s car and now the beautiful Mustang as well.

“Call me if you need anything,” Louis reminds him. “I’m only ever about fifteen minutes away.”

Harry nods, still quieter than usual, and he hasn’t stopped touching his phone where it bulges out his back pocket. Louis can only imagine how much he’s dreading calling Anne, and he figures Harry probably doesn’t want anyone around to witness that.

“Text me later, okay?” he adds, a little softer this time. Harry nods, wincing at the stiffness in his neck.

“Thank you again.” His voice is thick and slow from the medicine, and Louis feels weird leaving him alone, but Harry’d insisted. “I honestly don’t know what I’d have done-”

Louis flushes, because everything’s happened so quickly and he still hasn’t really let himself think about how he was the first person Harry called. He doesn’t know what that means, and he can’t imagine there’ll ever be a good time to ask, so he just ducks his head and watches Harry slowly make his way up the walkway to the front door.

* * *

 It turns out that the worst part of the accident doesn’t directly involve the deer or Harry’s irreparably mangled Mustang. The worst part of the accident, weirdly enough, comes as a direct result of the best part of the accident, which is that Louis offers to give Harry rides to school until he gets a new car. More time with Louis doesn’t really seem like it could be a bad thing.

It’s great, actually, for a few weeks. Harry repays Louis by making him breakfast every morning, and when Anne gets back from Atlanta she makes him one of her famous peach cobblers that Louis goes moon-eyed over. They sit in the bed of Louis’ truck early some mornings with Ms. Piglette, watching the sky change while they chew bacon biscuits in friendly silence. Sometimes Louis even picks Harry up after school, hangs around the bakery for a while and bums free muffins. They text more, and they talk more, and Louis starts to laugh so often that Harry can’t remember what it was like when he wasn’t laughing.

And the problem _isn’t_ Louis, really. The issue, actually, is that Harry can’t seem to keep his foot out of his mouth.

“That’s the third cigarette I’ve seen you smoke today,” Harry says, and if his voice has a hint of disapproval, it’s too late to fix it. He considers tacking on that Anne has seen Louis smoking and doesn’t like it, but that would be a) a lie and b) not even a useful one, because Harry can’t figure out a reason beyond wishful thinking why Louis would care what Anne Styles thinks about him.

Louis glances at Harry from the driver’s seat where he’s got an arm hanging out of the open window, cigarette dangling from two fingers. He raises his eyebrows in a way that, in retrospect, Harry might consider _warning_. “And?”

“I just don’t get why you smoke so much. Like, if you’re going to play sports, don’t you kind of need your lungs?”

Louis’ hand tightens convulsively on the steering wheel, knuckles whitening. He pulls the cigarette up for an exaggeratedly long drag, smoke curling past his lips on a deep sigh. “When exactly am I going to play _sports_?” he asks, voice twisting in a sinuous, dangerous kind of way, mimicking the smoke he breathes out.

“You can’t pretend you don’t miss playing ball- and you could make a career out of it! Everyone always said you were good enough.”

Louis doesn’t say anything to that, and when Harry glances over to check on him, the bottom drops out of his stomach. He’s not sure, actually, that he’s _ever_ seen anyone look so angry. There’s a point on Louis’ clenched jaw where the muscle keeps jumping, a rabbitty, unsteady motion that’s more than a little scary. His grip on the wheel is so tight that his hands are physically shaking. One time, when Harry was little but not too little to know better, he'd snuck into Gemma’s room and accidentally ripped her signed Backstreet Boys poster. Gemma at that time had looked only _slightly peeved_ at most compared to the way Louis looks now.

Even with all the signs right in front of him, Harry can’t seem to make himself stop. He wants to prove that he’s saying all this because he cares, because he wants Louis to have better than what he’s got- but it just won’t come out right. “If you just _tried_ playing ball again-”

“Listen,” Louis says, voice sharp and soft, an edgy growl of a thing. “Some things you just have to get out of your system so you can grow the fuck up and become whatever you’re actually meant to be. That’s what it was, alright? A pipe dream that the whole fucking town fell for.” He won’t look at Harry, won’t take his eyes off the windshield even though at some point while Harry wasn’t paying attention, they’d made it to his house. “And sorry that I’m the one who’s gotta tell you, but not everyone’s going to become whatever _you_ thought they’d be when they were eighteen and everything looked easy.”

Harry should get out out of the truck- no, Harry should _apologize_ and then get out of the truck, but- “You _loved_ it, and you loved- I don’t know, you were so alive when you played. Like, the center of everything-”

“I’m still fucking here, Harry,” Louis snaps, finally turning on him with a bitter snarl turning his mouth into something nasty. “You don’t get to waltz into my fucking life after I’ve finally managed to pull it back together just so you can tell me I’m not _happy_ or good enough, or whatever you’re trying to say.”

“No, I’m-”

“This is what it is, alright? It’s boring, and it’s repetitive, and I’m never going to be on fucking ESPN, but no one _asked you_ to follow me around like you’re waiting on a lame dog to do a trick. That’s all on fucking you. Now get _out_.” He punctuates the last word, slamming his open palm on the steering wheel so the horn blares once, piercing and high.

Harry scrambles out, feeling nauseous and panicked and really, really shitty, even though he was just trying to _help_. He keeps thinking that, watching Louis’ taillights disappear down the road, sitting across from his mom at dinner, brushing his teeth. He was just trying to help, and there’s nothing wrong with that, is there?

And it’s not that he doesn’t have a ride anymore, because when he gets home the next day courtesy of Cara, there’s a heart-clenchingly beautiful new Range Rover sitting in front of his house. It’s mostly that, after that, Louis doesn’t answer his texts or calls, and Harry kind of, maybe, for the first time catches a glimpse of what Louis was trying to tell him.

* * *

 

 Louis wakes up one Sunday to a clusterfuck of noise- dogs baying and his sisters chattering and a car horn blaring to hell out in the yard. Another noise gets added to that real quick- Lottie, slamming her fist against his bedroom door.

“Wake _up_ ; Niall says you’re late!”

Louis can’t imagine what he’s late for since he doesn’t have any plans, but the noise has risen to a fever pitch and he couldn’t go back to sleep if he tried, so he stumbles out of bed and down the hall, not bothering to put on a shirt or change out of his sleep-shorts.

Niall’s on the porch, one hand in his pocket while the other scratches at Ms. Piglette’s ear to keep her from joining the beagle chorus. When he spots Louis, he grins, sunburnt cheeks stretching. “Well, look what rose from the dead.”

Louis does his best not to be rude, but he’s sleepy and hasn’t exactly had the best week, all things considered. “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“Haven’t heard from you in a little while,” Niall says easily, patting Ms. Piglette one last time before throwing an arm around Louis’ neck and drawing him in for a hug. His fingers are rough and warm where they rest against Louis’ shoulder blades, and Louis’ pulse thuds unevenly in response. “Thought we’d do something fun today.”

“Like what?” Louis tries to stay irritated, but it’s hard when Niall’s rocking him back and forth like he’s a ridiculously large baby.

“Hang out,” Niall says easily, leaning away so he can get a good look at Louis. “Now get dressed, alright? Busy day ahead.”

It turns out Niall’s idea of a busy day is filling a cooler with his dad’s beer and driving out to the river to drink the whole thing.

“Don’t you have class tomorrow?” Louis asks, loose and buzzing with a few empty cans crushed between them on the floorboard of the backseat of the Jeep. His head’s lolled onto Niall’s shoulder, and the heat where their arms are pressed together has them both sweating.

Niall’s humming under his breath, hands tapping along to the insanely quick rhythm. Louis knows that underneath the driver’s seat of Niall’s Jeep, there’s a pair of drumsticks. They serve nearly the same purpose as the pitcher’s glove holding the same place underneath his own truck bench, though he thinks Niall probably actually takes them out and uses them one in a while.

“Only got classes Tuesday and Thursday. Like hell am I driving into Duluth five days a week.”

Louis makes a noise of noncommittal agreement, lazily trying to follow the lightning pace of Niall’s drumming. There’s a cool breeze coming through the open Jeep doors, and it finally smells like fall. Niall cracks open another can one-handed, never missing a beat, and offers Louis the first sip.

“Do you miss it?” Louis asks suddenly, still swallowing around the bready taste in his mouth.

Niall pauses, hands poised over his own thighs. “What?” he asks, even though he knows.

“Like...” Louis jerks his head roughly to indicate Niall’s conspicuously-still hands. “Drumming. Being a drummer.”

“I’m still a drummer,” Niall says easily, jumping back into his rhythm. “But I know what you mean. I miss performing, I guess. I can drum by myself all I want, but that high from being in front of people, being in the middle of everything- yeah, I miss that.”

Louis lets out a long breath, closing his eyes and burrowing his face into the crook between Niall’s neck and shoulder. He smells good- like soap, mostly; _clean_.

“It’s not like I’m never going to do it again, though.” Niall stops drumming again, squeezing Louis’ knee with one hand, making him pay attention. “This is just a way-point, you know? I’ve got long term plans. Transfer to a state school after I finish up my basics at the local college, audition for bass drum in their marching band, become drum captain in the next two years before I graduate, run everything. Got it all planned out.”

And even though Louis knows Niall is _sort of_ joking, it still makes his head spin. He hasn't planned shit beyond what he's going to eat for lunch or what time to pick up his sisters from cheer practice in far too long. Niall seems to get it, bringing an arm around Louis' shoulder and squeezing a hand around the nape of his neck. It releases some of the tension, lets Louis melt into him a little more.

"You'll be alright." Niall tells him, easy as he says everything.

* * *

 

 Harry’s not really sure why he’s been invited to watch the World Series at the Horan house aside from the fact that Niall seems to instinctively understand that Harry wants to be around Louis Tomlinson the way that fish want to be around water.

Unfortunately, he has to work until the bakery closes, so it’s late by the time he pulls into the Horan’s yard, parking between Louis’ truck and a beat-up compact he doesn’t recognize.

The front door is flung wide, light spilling out into the evening air, and Harry has to pause the moment he turns his car off, because through his open sunroof he can hear Louis’ voice, loud and joyous and completely, undeniably alive. There’s a backing track of hysterical laughter, so many different timbres that Harry can’t even guess how many people are inside, watching Louis shine like he’s singlehandedly turned Bobby Horan’s handmade buckhide lamps into spotlights. They’re all so caught up in Louis reenacting some sort of disastrous base-stealing attempt that no one even notices Harry standing in the doorway until Louis stops mid-spin, mouth slightly open, staring at Harry like he has no idea what Harry’s doing here. Harry tries to look like he doesn't feel exactly the same way.

The laughter dies off as everyone follows Louis’ eyes to the door, and there’s a chorused greeting, Niall calling, “Styles! Just a bit early for the Halloween costume.”

“What?” Harry asks dumbly, still staring at Louis, who’s paused with one foot half in the air.

“You look like a ghost! What’s all that on your shirt?” Liam asks, frowning, and Harry looks down to see he’s still covered in flour from rolling the dough for tomorrow’s bread.

“Oh, I-”

“-work at the bakery,” Louis finishes for him, half-smiling like he can’t help himself, and Harry feels his own mouth tug up in response.

He wants to apologize, or at least acknowledge that he understands why Louis hasn’t talked to him, but the commercials have gone off, and the commentators are warming up to the final inning, rehashing the earlier parts of the game, and most of the room seems to forget Harry’s existence.

Louis gives Harry a last considering look before wedging himself onto one of the packed couches, settling between Niall and a couch arm with a lot of wriggling and elbows until Niall’s laughing and wrapping an arm around Louis’ shoulder to make more room. There’s nowhere really left to sit, every couch cushion and recliner packed with past and present members of the Screaming Devils baseball team. Even the floor is a hazardous maze of sprawled limbs and beer cans, but Harry finds a spot next to Liam in front of Niall and Louis’ couch and settles down, wincing when his back twinges from the hard floor.

The last inning drags in a way that isn’t necessarily unpleasant. Whatever monotony Harry would usually feel from watching baseball is broken up by the level of excitement everyone else in the room is feeling, shouting and groaning and cursing and crowing at intervals that would probably make more sense if Harry were actually trying to follow the game. The inning finally ends but the game doesn’t, settling into a last minute tie that has the house shaking with joy and outrage.

A commercial break cuts into the broadcast, and the room devolves into a mess of conversations and texting, calls for more drinks.

Harry feels the couch behind him shift, and when he looks over his shoulder Louis is untangling himself from Niall, standing and feeling at his back pockets.

“Smoke break,” he explains quietly when Niall looks up at him with raised eyebrows, and they do something that’s not quite a fist bump or high five, just a soft brush of their palms as Louis passes Niall and heads for the front door.

Harry gives it about a minute and a half before he’s standing and making a vague mumbled excuse to follow, telling Liam he’s left his phone in his car. When he steps out into the night, he doesn’t spot Louis right away, and he wonders, briefly, if Louis’d decided to leave. Then Harry glances over at Louis’ truck and spots the outline of him, a backlit shadow sitting on the open tailgate.

Louis doesn’t say anything when Harry makes his way across the Horan’s yard and stands in front of him, hands tucked in his pockets. The fading red glow of the cigarette end doesn’t do much to help Harry read Louis’ expression, but he figures if Louis wanted him to leave, he’d have said already.

When Louis finally speaks, he doesn’t say anything Harry was expecting.

“Didn’t think you liked baseball, Styles.”

It leaves Harry speechless for a moment, reeling for a response while he tries to recover from hearing Louis’ voice, smoke-rough and soft. He finally pulls himself together, shifting from foot to foot, scuffing his boots over the dry grass and gravel. “Went to plenty of baseball games,” Harry points out, keeping his words carefully teasing, unsure where they stand at the moment.

“Mmm,” Louis hums, tipping his head slightly in acknowledgement. “You know what I reckon all the baseball games you’ve seen have in common?”

Harry rocks on his heels, uncertain, drifting. If it were daylight, if he could see Louis’ face, maybe he’d see where this was going. As it is, he hazards a guess, smiling beseechingly even though Louis probably can’t see him very well. “That I didn’t know what was going on?”

“I reckon,” Louis says, taking the cigarette from his mouth and flicking the ashes to the ground, “you only ever paid attention to baseball when it involved paying attention to me.”

Mentally, it feels a little like Louis’ just torn Harry’s clothes off and shoved him onto a stage in front of the entire town. In reality, it’s still just the two of them, and the cicadas singing, and the distant sounds of conversation from inside the house. It’s still just Louis, holding a cigarette, swinging his feet lazily where they’re hanging off the tailgate.

“Could be,” Harry agrees finally, because there’s no point in denying it, and he’s not even sure if he wants to, if that realization is what has Louis talking to him again.

Instead of answering, Louis just hums again, and then he hops to the ground, huffing at the impact and grabbing for Harry’s arm when he goes off-balance. He rights himself quickly and turns to heave the tailgate up, slamming it shut with a grunt before heading back to the house without saying another word.

It’s not perfect but it’s better than nothing, so Harry follows him back inside. They don’t talk much, but Harry sits with his back to the bit of couch Louis is curled up on, and when the night’s over and everyone heads out to their cars, the two of them walk a little slower than everyone else, coming to stop by Harry’s new car.

“Your mom really went all out,” Louis observes, running his hand over the sleek black paint, still factory-new.

“Think it was my stepdad, mostly.” Harry hesitates, floundering because he knows what Louis’ getting at. “But, yeah, I’m- I’m really lucky.”

Louis ducks his head quickly, like he’s trying to hide something, but when he looks back up at Harry, he seems pleased. “Are you busy tomorrow?”

Harry’s heart thuds, stomach twisting, and he fights to keep his face neutral. “There’s a party, actually, if you want to-”

“No,” Louis cuts in flatly. “I’m not going to a high school party, Styles.”

“But-”

“ _No_ ,” Louis says again, emphatic and laughing this time. He takes a deep breath before reaching out and circling his fingers around Harry’s wrist, giving it a light squeeze that sets his entire body on fire, hand flexing desperate and too-late because Louis’ already pulled away. “But I’ll see you sometime this week, alright?”

Then he’s gone, brushing past Harry and climbing into his truck without another word.

So things went better than expected.

* * *

 

Somehow Harry takes “no, I’m not dragging my grown ass to a high school party” as code for “yeah, instead take me to this corn maze meant for literal children.”

The plus side is that once they’ve gone through the ordeal of finding a place to park in the packed field across from the Horan’s place, it feels really- nice. As soon as the car doors open, Louis’ punched with the fall smells, popcorn and hay and trampled earth, sweet cinnamon and apple and just a hint of actual chill in the light breeze. He only realizes he’s nose-up sniffing the air when he hears Harry laughing behind him, and Louis whirls to see him with his chin resting on his crossed arms on the roof of the Range Rover, eyes pleased, knowing little slits.

“You love this,” Harry says, sounding far too smug about it. They haven’t even gone through the gate yet.

“It just smells good, Styles. Don’t get ahead of yourself. It’s still for babies.”

Harry starts to say something but he’s cut off by that loud, hawkish cry Louis’ become reacquainted with in the past few months after being dragged back into the world.

“Sweet T!”

“Oh Jesus,” Louis groans quietly, and Harry laughs, because he’s a traitor. Louis wonders if that nickname will ever curl up and die, but, no, he guesses not. Nothing changes, nothing changes, nothing changes.

Someone thumps him on the back and someone else wraps a hand familiar and too-hot around the back of his neck, doesn’t even know who it is because it’s not the hand that’s familiar, really, just the gesture. Scruff of the neck, light squeeze, _good game, good game_. Top of the world. He’s wrapped up in it and then out again so quickly- _what’ve you been up to, ain’t seen you in ages, haven’t come to none of the games, oh you know, work, busy, this is what it’s like, real world and all, y’all have fun, you too. Keep in touch. You too._

By the time the crowd’s moved past, Louis’ still standing stupidly by Harry’s car, hand death-gripping the frame of the open door, white-knuckled. He hadn’t realized he was smiling until now, when it starts to hurt, too wide, teeth clenched like a vice ready to bust his jaw loose. If he were a hen his feathers would be ruffled, scraped back to front.

Harry’s staring at him from a few feet away, mouth slightly open, and there’s that _look_ again, like he’s trying to bridge the gap in his head between whatever hero-worship-fantasy he and half the town’d had about Louis two summers back and what Louis is now, scared shitless just being in a crowd of people who remember him too well.

It takes a physical effort to unclench his jaw, but Louis manages, staring Harry full in the face the whole time, because he’s getting pissed off- and embarrassed, but that’s not even something he wants to admit.

“Well?” he spits, a mean drawl, slamming the door with enough force to rock the frame on the wheels.

Harry blinks heavyslow, rocking on his heels in time with the Range Rover, teetering like he’s trying to decide whether to take a step towards Louis or away. He settles on towards, but carefully, edging up to Louis’ side cattycorner the way people approach unbroken horses. “Well,” Harry says slowly, lips stretching gently around the sound. “At least the worst is over, right?” He finishes with a grin, maybe not quite as confident as he would’ve been before the argument, but building back up to it.

And Louis falters, because technically Harry’s right. What he’s been avoiding has already happened, so there’s nothing between him and making Harry buy him about six cups of apple cider at the snack booth. So that’s what he does.

The maze itself is a hell-like labyrinth. It’s family-friendly, so there are no real monsters or anything, but it’s just so _big_. After about the twelfth dead-end, the sun disappears beneath the treeline and they’re left to navigate the high stalks with nothing but the help of Harry’s phone flashlight and the occasional floodlight when they’re in range.

“If we die in here,” Louis starts, when they’ve come across what _must_ be the same scarecrow for the fifth time in half an hour, “I’m going to haunt Niall’s entire family. His great-grandchildren will hear me cursing in the night.”

Harry makes a vague noise of agreement, but he’s been unnaturally quiet. When Louis asks, “You alright?” after an unsettling period of near-complete silence, Harry just says, “Think I’m kinda claustrophobic.”

Louis stops dead, turning on his heel to glare up at Harry. “You’re just telling me _now_? We’ve been in here for a fucking hour-””

“I was alright at first!” Harry defends himself, flashlight beam jumping around when he waves his hand. “But then we stopped bumping into other people, and I feel like we’ve been in the same place for- what are you doing?” he demands, sounding slightly hysteric as he watches Louis dial a number and put his cell up to his ear.

Louis doesn’t get a chance to answer before Niall picks up with a cheerful, “Ayyy! Sweet T!”

“Ugh, don’t,” Louis groans, rolling his eyes. “I need you to rescue me from your corn prison.”

“Ah, got ya. Nearest landmark?”

Louis squints around before spotting something. “We’ve been near the same fucking scarecrow wearing your old Braves jersey for about the last hundred years, feels like-”

Niall cackles, swearing to himself. “Ohhh, you’re going to feel so-”

He doesn’t finish, just clicks off with a BEEP, and about ten minutes later, something comes crashing through the wall of corn to their right.

“Were we really close to the exit?” Harry asks hopefully while he and Louis follow Niall through the maze he knows like the back of his hand.

“Not fuckin’ even,” Niall laughs. “You were about three turns from the entrance, actually- must’ve gotten caught in a loop-”

Harry groans, dropping his head against Louis’ shoulder in a way that’s awkward while they’re walking. They make it out faster than Louis cares to think about, and Niall bids them goodbye with a wink, back to work.

“I need funnel cake,” Harry decides, still looking a little pale. “And hot chocolate. And popcorn-”

“Alright, you big baby.” They wander around the booths outside the maze, eating bits of everything and looking through the displays made by the elementary school classes. Louis spots his sisters’ hand-turkeys and stops to take a picture for them, even though they’d already been earlier today with Jay. There’s even a little face-painting booth, and Louis donates three dollars to the girls’ softball team to turn Harry into an unfortunate-looking black cat.

“Come on,” Harry says, but it comes out like he’s begging. “Just one movie.”

He keeps bringing it up every few minutes, which Louis supposes is fair since he hasn’t actually given an answer. There are about one billion reasons Louis could say no. Number one is that “come watch a movie at my place”, at least when Louis was a high school senior a trillion years ago when dinosaurs roamed the earth, absolutely never actually meant “come watch a movie at my place.” He can’t imagine that’s changed much.

“What movie?” he asks, even though he doesn’t really mean to.

Harry’s eyes light up, and he looks like something else with the cat nose-and-whiskers grease-painted onto his face. He grabs Louis’ fingers, squeezing excitedly. Louis can feel the smooth metal of his class ring. “You can pick. Anything you want. We’ve got so many-”

“Jesus, Styles,” Louis says, turning away to laugh because he can’t take the intensity of Harry’s face anymore, not this close. “Jesus, alright.”

Even with the families milling around them and the distant shrieking from the corn maze, Louis hears Harry’s breath catch in his throat. The smile splitting Harry’s face could act as a beacon to lead people out of that damned corn maze. “Yeah?”

Louis shrugs, finally disentangling his fingers from Harry’s and heading towards the car. “Yeah, Styles, I said so, didn’t I?”

He’s said a lot of stupid shit in his life, so he won’t feel too bad about this one.

The ride to Harry’s isn’t tense, exactly, but it’s a kind of heavy quiet that sends goosebumps scattering up and down Louis’ arms. Harry’s focus on the road is so pointedly single-minded that Louis wants to laugh, but he hangs his arm out the open window instead, cutting the evening air with his hand and watching the trees rush by.

There aren’t any cars parked in the Styles’ drive, and Louis sends Harry a look that’s meant to be inquisitive, though he figures it probably lands a little closer to _knowing_.

“Mom’s back in Atlanta for press,” Harry says with a level of casual that’s so forced it’s embarrassing.

“And?” Louis presses, feigning ignorance about as convincingly as Harry’s feigning innocence.

“My stepdad never comes down here except for summer.”

Louis hums, undoing his seat belt and watching from the corner of his eye as Harry does the same, fingers trembling. It’s so sweet and second-hand embarrassing that Louis’ heart thuds unevenly in his chest, and he slides out of the car quickly.

Harry doesn’t exactly fumble with unlocking the door, but it does take him a beat too long. Louis spends the extra moment eyeing the broad expanse of Harry’s back, tracing the way his shirt stretches over his shoulder blades. Wonders when Harry grew into his ridiculous hands.

The inside of Harry’s house is all hardwood, sleek and warm, welcoming. Louis toes his shoes off in the entryway, Harry standing a bit to the side, pulling at his bottom lip.

When Louis looks up and catches him staring, Harry glances away quickly, turning and walking towards the open kitchen. “Are you thirsty?” he asks, already ducking his head into the refrigerator. “We’ve got tea, I think, and water. No soda, sorry-”

“Water’s fine,” Louis cuts him off, leaning against one of the high marble counters and watching the fidgety way Harry digs out a bottle of water from the bottom of the fridge.

When Harry straightens himself, he holds the bottle out, not quite meeting Louis’ eye. “The DVD player is, um, upstairs-”

“Upstairs,” Louis parrots back, and Harry’s face pinks up.

“In my room.”

Louis snorts, taking the water bottle and turning for the stairs they’d passed on the way to the kitchen. “Is that right.”

Harry’s room is clean- smells like pine and detergent, the only thing out of place seems to be the rumpled sheets on his bed, and Louis does his best to skim over those without paying them much mind. There’s a ratty sofa in the corner, and Louis has the distinct impression it’s the only thing in the house that isn’t in perfect condition.

He crosses to it, flopping down and huffing when he sinks too far into the worn cushions. “Pull this out the garbage?”

Harry’s fiddling with a silver remote, dimple peeking out when he smiles softly. “Belonged to my grandfather. He died right where you’re sitting.”

Louis freezes, hands hovering over the scratchy sofa material.

“I was kidding,” Harry says a moment later, face splitting into a broader grin when he manages to get the TV on and the DVD player whirs to life. “What do you want to watch?”

There’s a bullshit artistic throw pillow on one corner of the couch, and Louis snags it and launches it at Harry’s head. “You’re such a fucking- I don’t care. Pick something.”

It turns out that letting Harry pick the movie is a mistake. It takes for-fucking-ever, and Louis’ half-asleep by the time Harry makes a pleased little throaty noise, rocking back on his heels in front of the DVD player and popping in a disc.

“Better be good,” Louis mumbles, moving over a few inches so Harry has plenty of room to sit on his very own couch cushion a safe distance away.

That lasts all of the first two minutes of _The Grudge_ before Harry’s uneasily shifted himself closer to Louis’ side, mouth twisted down into a grimace.

“The lights aren't even off, you big baby.”

Harry shoots him a _look_ , then hauls himself up and goes to switch the lights off. Louis hadn’t meant it as a suggestion, but he supposes he sees how it could’ve been interpreted that way. When Harry settles back onto the couch, he’s close enough that their thighs touch, shoulders brushing at the slightest shift.

It’s strange how, even though there’s a movie playing in surround-sound, the loudest thing in the room seems to be Louis’ own breathing, or maybe the soft _shhh_ of the couch fabric when Harry draws one leg up. Either way, Louis could probably write up an exact transcript of every single cut-off groan of the couch springs, while he doubts he could quote a single line of doomed-main-character’s dialogue.

Harry’s weight against his side gets steadily heavier until Louis’ arm is nearly asleep. It was funny at first- big, lanky Harry being terrified of something as old and worn as _The Grudge_ , but now it’s just inconvenient and slightly painful, Louis’ arm pins-and-needles beneath the press of Harry’s body.

“Harry,” Louis hisses into the dark, twitching his shoulder to get Harry to budge up. It doesn’t work, and it takes Louis a moment to realize Harry’s managed to fall asleep on him.

He nearly laughs, because isn’t that just like Harry to pass out in the middle of his one chance at seducing Louis, or whatever this was meant to be- but then Louis cranes his neck around to check and he doesn’t feel much like laughing anymore.

He looks soft, and tired, and sweet. He looks so sweet Louis’ gut clenches up in protest, and then his chest follows suit, and he’s left staring at Harry’s vulnerable open mouth and feeling like he’s been punched in his breastbone.

Louis grits his teeth and looks away, stares stonily at the creepy gore happening on the screen. He kind of wants to shake Harry awake and make a big scene about it- _oh no you don’t, Styles, not like this! I’m not going to go soft for you just because you fall asleep on my shoulder-_

But that seems dramatic, and counterproductive somehow. Like maybe this wasn’t really Harry’s plan, and Louis’ brain is just giving him too much credit. Like maybe Harry just likes him and happened to fall asleep on him because they’re friends, and it’s nice.

Either way, Louis settles back on the couch and shifts around, using all his big brother training to maneuver Harry’s head into his lap without waking him. The movie, of course, continues on, but Louis can’t focus on much besides how soft Harry’s hair feels where it’s tangled around two of Louis’ fingers.

When the credits start rolling it might as well be out of nowhere, Louis’ sense of time absolutely lost. It feels like he’s been sitting here long enough for eight movies to play. He doesn’t really want to wake Harry up, but when he looks down it turns out that’s not even something he needed to worry about, because Harry’s already staring back up at him, eyes heavy-lidded and sleepy but alert, like he’s been watching for a while. The grease-painted cat whiskers on his face are smeared, probably stained onto Louis' jeans as well.

Harry nudges his head up against Louis’ hand, pointedly demanding that Louis resume carding fingers through his hair, which he hadn’t really even realized he was doing until he’d been surprised into stopping.

“I have to go home,” Louis says, though it sounds unconvincing even to his own ears.

“One more movie,” Harry rasps back, blinking heavily like he’s going to nod off again any second.

Louis has about a billion arguments, starting with _you didn’t even watch the first one_ and ending with a simple _no_ , but somehow he ends up easing himself off the couch and digging through Harry’s DVD collection while Harry stretches across the couch, half-watching and half-dozing. Louis finds a plain disc with _Hocus Pocus_ scrawled in sharpie and pops it into the DVD player, amused somehow at the idea of Harry owning bootlegged Disney movies.

Harry squirms around long enough for Louis to reclaim his seat, then drops his head heavily back into Louis’ lap, turning onto his back to stare up at a probably-unflattering view of Louis’ chin and nostrils. “What’d you pick?”

“You’ll see.” Harry opens his mouth to protest, but Louis just presses two fingers over his lips, shushing him. “This is one of my favorites, so shut it, Styles.”

Harry turns back onto his side, one hand sneaking up under Louis’ thigh the way sleepers hold their pillows. Louis tries not to tense, staring intently at the screen, and eventually it feels almost natural for Harry’s fingers to curl warm around the underside of Louis’ thigh.

“Can I tell you a secret?” Harry asks out of nowhere a few moments later, when Louis’d been _sure_ he was absolutely asleep.

“If you have to.”

“When I was little,” Harry mumbles slowly, like he’s either testing the words or talking in his sleep, “I had a crush on the cat.”

It shocks Louis into laughing, so violently and suddenly that he nearly sends Harry rolling off the couch.

“You wanted to fuck the weird cat puppet from _Hocus Pocus_?”

“Noooo,” whines Harry, turning his face into Louis’ stomach like it’ll hide his huge dimpled grin. “I was _little_. I just thought he was...nice.”

“You wanted to _date_ the cat puppet; you’re right, that’s not nearly as weird-”

“I didn’t know it was a puppet!’

“Even better, you wanted to date an actual cat-”

“Loooouuiiiss.” He sounds delighted, though, like he loves Louis making fun of him this way. He presses his face a little harder into Louis’ stomach, biting him sharply through his t-shirt when Louis won’t stop laughing.

“ _Jesus_ , stop, Styles!” He pushes Harry’s face away, holding him still when he struggles. They wrestle awkwardly for a moment before settling into a truce when Sarah Jessica Parker’s witch titties appear on screen. Harry doesn't fall back asleep, but he stays put, watching the movie about as much as he watches Louis.

When the credits roll, Harry blinks up at him, lips quirked into a complicated not-quite frown.

"I wish you'd stay," he mumbles, voice thick from being quiet for so long.

Louis' heart does something complicated in his chest, and he reaches down to rub his thumb across Harry's cheek, smearing the last in-tact cat whisker into a black blur across his cheekbone. "Have to get home before I turn into a pumpkin, Styles."

The soft smile he gets in response is shattering, and he finally has to look away. Harry sits up, spine audibly cracking in protest so Louis winces. He leads Louis downstairs and out the front door, following him all the way to Louis' truck where it's parked in the drive. Louis gets in, feeling strangely, intensely conscious of his own body- the place on his thigh where Harry's head had rested, his fingers where they'd been wrapped in Harry's hair. He cranks the truck and rolls the window down, figures he'll give the old engine a few moments to warm up before he drives off.

Harry crosses his forearms and rests his head on them, blinking up at Louis through the open window. He's so close that Louis can smell his weird shampoo- something herbal, not mint but not far off. He looks like he wants to say something, but he also looks like he might just fall asleep there standing next to Louis' truck.

"You be safe, alright, Styles?" Louis murmurs, because the silence feels to heavy, like it might break into something else.

Harry nods, then reaches up and runs the pad of his thumb over Louis' cheekbone, quick as anything, before he stands up and backs away. He says, "Drive safe," but Louis barely hears it over the roaring in his ears.


	3. winter, spring

 

* * *

 

 "Tell me you believe the world is made of more than all its stupid, stubborn, small refusals, that anything, everything is still possible."

from "To Gabriela at the Donkey Sanctuary"

by Mary Szybist

 

* * *

 

The taxidermy business picks up like it does every November, bumping along into full swing so suddenly Louis doesn’t even realize he’s been busy until he wakes up one morning and _doesn’t_ have anything to do.

It's almost Thanksgiving, and Louis' been elbow-deep in deer carcasses for so many weeks straight that he's almost managed not thinking about Zayn at all. Unfortunately, Thanksgiving marks exactly a year since they last spoke, so of course that's the first thing he thinks of when he opens his eyes. Zayn's family had already moved to South Carolina by that point, so there'd been no reason for him to come back and visit. And even though they hadn't really spoken in months, and even though every time they had spoken it'd been a little like trading papercuts back and forth, Louis'd still kind of expected Zayn to show up, somehow, some way.

He wonders what it would be like if Zayn called now. It shocks him, only nearly a year later, that he can’t really imagine it- looking at his phone and seeing Zayn’s name pop up, that stupid selfie with the two of them from Halloween senior year, faces painted and tongues out. Close, close, close.

Louis' not even sure he would answer.

Or, really- he’s entirely sure he would answer, and he’s equally sure he’d say about a million fucking terrible things and end up feeling worse than he’s felt for however long.

The diamond is roughed up, used for practice or a scrimmage game during the afternoon. The cleat-prints are sharp and dusty, and he follows them from base to base at a slow walk. It's finally consistently cold enough that he has to wear a jacket when he comes out here at night, cold enough that no bugs hover around the few security lights around the perimeter of the baseball field.

Probably the worst thing about it all is that he’d left nearly a billion messages at the beginning. Feels truly fucking stupid thinking back on them now- “Hey, man, sure you’re busy-” “Hey, been a while-”, and that last ditch effort, “Hey, just wondering if you’re coming home for Christmas-”

So fucking stupid.

But, really, the worst thing is just all of it. How he wasn’t even surprised when he figured out Zayn wasn’t going to return his calls or come back to visit or- anything, really. Because that’s just how things go. Or something. And it's been long enough that he's picked apart the bits that were his fault as well- he's finally made himself remember all the times Zayn had called him back, how he'd been to bitter and pissed off to pick up. It feels so ridiculous now, like there were so many chances to fix it and they'd both decided to keep fucking it up instead.

_Too little, too late,_ as his mom had said when his stepdad made a last ditch effort at saving the marriage.

It doesn't feel _good_ , exactly, realizing that he's gained some distance from the whole thing. But he doesn't feel as heavy, or as tender. He feels different enough that when he gets a text while he's standing on the pitcher's mound, his first instinct isn't to wince away from the possibility of who it might be.

It's Harry.

_Are y'all still coming to Thanksgiving dinner? It'll just be Mom and me. Gemma couldn't get a flight back and Robin's stuck in Augusta:(_

Last year, Louis'd spent the better part of Thanksgiving day angrily drinking out by the railroad bridge. He'd spent the better part of Thanksgiving dinner getting an earful from Jay about growing up and doing better and not being a bad influence on the girls. It'd been a rough year for all of them.

_yea, sure we dont need to bring anything ??_

He's still not sure how he feels about his mom taking up Anne Styles' invitation to Thanksgiving dinner. Mostly, he still feels a bit of whiplash. He hadn't even known Jay and Anne knew each other well enough for that sort of thing. Still, the girls are excited, and he has to admit that it'll be nice to see Harry again. He's been so busy that they've barely seen each other since the corn maze. Since the movies. Since Harry'd touched his face so soft that Louis can still feel it somehow, like the reverse of a bruise.

_Nope! Just happy to see you again._

_not sure i even want to come if gemma's not going to be there,_ Louis sends back, feeling a not-exactly unpleasant twist in his gut. He's smiling like an idiot, standing by himself in the middle of the deserted baseball field. _i guess i'll still come just for annes cooking though_

There's barely a beat before Harry responds.

_You know you've missed me.  
_

Louis just rolls his eyes, because it might be true but that doesn't mean he has to answer.

* * *

Harry's not _nervous_ about the Tomlinson's coming for Thanksgiving, but at some point _The Tomlinsons_ had morphed into _oh, and Bobby and Niall Horan, and Cooter Tomlinson and that young man who lives with him, I think Jay said his name is Liam._ Anne's hospitality always ends up running rampant if no one is around to check it, and Gemma's the only one who ever can.

It's not like Harry dislikes anyone who's coming, but he'd had an embarrassingly romantic picture in his head of him and Louis sneaking up to his room after dinner, even if all they were doing was sleeping off the food while sprawled on Harry's twin bed. It'd been a long shot to start with, but it seems even less likely with more people hanging around.

The doorbell rings some time in the early afternoon, and Harry nearly twists his ankle sprinting to the door. He can feel Anne laughing at him from the kitchen even if he can't hear her. He heaves the door open a little too quickly, forgets to give himself time to get his breath back so he doesn't seem half as jittery as he feels.

Jay Tomlinson, it turns out, knows how to give that same _look_ that Anne Styles has- the smug, knowing twitch of the mouth that says _I know exactly where your head is at, boy, so don't think you're getting away with anything._ The gaggle of Tomlinson sisters aren't quite there yet, but Harry feels like the oldest one isn't far off if her cocked eyebrow is anything to go by.

"Hi," Harry gasps, fixing his face into a bright smile and stepping aside to let them in. "We're just finishing up dinner. My mom's in the kitchen-"

Anne's voice trills, "Jay, is that you?" from further in the house, and Harry is spared coming up with anything else to say when Jay and the girls trail past him, following the sound of Anne's voice. Conversation breaks out somewhere over his shoulder, Anne exclaiming how big the twins have gotten and when did Lottie dye her hair and Jay looks better than ever, but Harry's still stuck at the door, grinning at Louis.

"Sorry we're late," Louis says, hands in his pockets. His hair's dark and curling right at the base of his neck, like it's still damp from the shower. "The girls were so excited that getting them dressed was like trying to wrangle a herd of circus clowns."

Harry can't even think of anything to say. He just feels impossibly light, like he's taking a breath for the first time in weeks. "You look..." he starts, and then trails off, shaking his head a little because he's not sure how to say it.

Louis cocks his head slightly, eyes sharp and locked on Harry's face. He's holding himself differently, like the dark jeans and fitted shirt feel strange on his body.

Probably do, Harry thinks, since he's mostly seen Louis in shorts and shirts with cut-off sleeves.

"You look really nice," is what Harry settles on, ducking his head to hide how ridiculous he feels. He compliments people all the time, but this feels like taking the SATs naked for some reason.

"Thanks," Louis says, reaching out and straightening the collar of Harry's white button-up. His hand lingers just long enough for the heel of his palm to brush the line of Harry's jaw, and then it's right back in his pocket like it'd never been out at all. "You clean up alright, too, I guess."

The sound of Niall's Jeep breaks off any further conversation, and then Cooter Tomlinson's ridiculously rusty Ford pulls in soon after that, and then Harry barely has time to dwell on the warmth flooding his body because dinner starts and it's impossible to focus on much of anything over the smell of the food and the pleasant roar of conversation. He catches Louis' eye once or twice across the table, and each time he can't quite manage to fix his face into anything less embarrassing than open-mouthed, stunned uncertainty, which makes Louis laugh and look away, resuming his conversation with Liam.

Dinner flows into dessert which flows into the content, groaning misery of post-Thanksgiving stomachaches.

Somehow, the four of them- Harry, Louis, Niall, Liam- end up back at the Horans', sitting around a bonfire in creaky old wooden lawn chairs. Harry's still so full that he feels dazed, and there's a mostly-empty beer can hanging loosely from his hand while he watches the sparks trail up into the night. Liam and Louis are arguing about something, though Harry's not sure it's an argument so much as a shouting match just to celebrate the joy of shouting. They're funny when they're together, even though Harry's still a little fuzzy on the details of who Liam is exactly.

Niall lets out a long whistle, heaving himself up from his chair and stretching until his shirt rides up his stomach, which he then pats at absently. "Full as a tick," he grumbles, and they all chorus groggy agreement. Harry catches Louis' eye across the fire, and he feels a little deer-in-headlights with the way Louis is watching him, focused and serious. Louis jerks his head to the side, a silent _follow me_ , and Harry struggles up from his chair to do just that, trailing Louis out past the ring of the firelight and into the cold dark.

They don't make it far before Louis folds himself down in the high grass, pulling his knees up to his chin and patting the ground beside him for Harry to sit. It's windy, a bone-deep chill in the air that only seems to heighten Harry's awareness of how warm Louis feels where their sides touch.

"I did miss you," Louis says, "a little."

Harry's heart thuds dangerously, and he wishes he'd skipped the beer so he could focus on the words better. "You, too," he says, then rolls his eyes up at the sky, scrunching his nose at himself. "I mean-"

"And you're probably really behind on that project, huh?" Louis goes on, smiling a little while he twists a blade of grass around his finger.

Harry frowns, confused. "Project?"

"Your AP project," Louis clarifies, properly grinning now. "Environmental Science."

Harry groans, dropping his face into his hands and letting his weight fall heavily against Louis. "You knew that was shit the whole time, didn't you?"

Louis' laugh is bright and soft at once, and he taps his forehead with two fingers. "Didn't have to do AP to learn how to spot bullshit a mile off."

That leaves the question of why Louis went along with it, why he put up with Harry slowing him down and following him everywhere. But it feels like a question he shouldn't ask, like something that Louis wouldn't be able to answer even if he wanted, so Harry keeps his mouth shut for once and buries his face against Louis' shoulder, burrowing into the warmth there.

"The last time I talked to Zayn was a year ago today," Louis says suddenly, so quiet Harry nearly misses it. “And I knew, I think, in some way, that we’d never speak again- at least not like that. Not as friends.”

It’s strange how stupidly, inexplicably young it makes Harry feel, because he can’t even imagine the feeling Louis’ talking about. There are so many half-formed protests clogging up his throat- a desperate sort of symphony of “there’s still time, there’s always time.” But the look on Louis’ face is a thousand-yard stare that Harry’s never seen anything like before, like if he looks out at the grown-over corn field long enough he’ll be able to see all the way to California, but he doesn’t have to, really, because he already knows that wherever Zayn is, he won’t be looking back.

Louis’ never been on an airplane. Harry knows this, because they’d talked about it during one of those early mornings, shivering in the damp gray halflight in the woods. Louis’ never felt the ground and distance shrink to nothing below him, never crossed so much space that the world became a manageable map in his mind.

Harry’s not sure, now, that it would help.

“You were best friends,” is all he says, and he wishes, immediately, that he hadn’t even said that.

There’s a hushing, rushing wind through the tall grass, but the world still feels vacuum-quiet.

"It's alright, I think," Louis says. "Or it will be, not really soon, but someday. I just wanted to tell you, because I hadn't told anyone." He takes a shaky breath, and when he lets it out, a tiny cloud of steam puffs from his mouth. "And it felt like I should."

Harry doesn't know what to do with that. He wonders if anyone includes Jay, Louis' sisters, Niall. If Louis' really spent almost an entire year trying to patch up what must have felt like part of himself disappearing- if he'd really been doing that alone this whole time. He presses his face tighter into the crook between Louis' neck and shoulder, finds Louis' hand between them in the grass and squeezes his frozen fingers.

 

* * *

Shopping for Christmas presents is a nightmare. Louis never knows what to get his mom, and he never has enough money to get his sisters what they really want, so every holiday season feels like a long slow march to the disappointment that is Christmas morning. He knows from every past Christmas that no matter what he buys, the girls and Jay will love it, but it never stops him feeling awful in the meantime.

He's internally wrestling with that life-long struggle while he stands in line at the Duluth Wal-mart, cart full of wrapping paper and stuffed animals, makeup, bath sets- and then he hears, "Tomlinson?" from behind him, and turns to see Coach Brown looking at him like he's seen a ghost risen from the dead.

Louis' pulse thumps in his ears, heavy, sluggish, panicked, all at once.

"Coach," he hears himself say, voice strangely calm and light compared to the racket inside him.

Coach Brown wheels his own cart into the line behind Louis, effectively trapping him for the duration of the checkout process. "I heard you were around from some of the boys on the team," he says, and Louis starts unloading his presents onto the conveyor belt on auto-pilot, hands numb.

"Never really left," he says lightly, rearranging two rolls of wrapping paper like that will keep them from rolling off the belt.

Coach is quiet for a moment, does the decent thing and lets Louis avoid meeting his eye. Finally, he says, "Yeah, I heard about all that."

Louis _knows_ he heard about all that, because Coach had tried to get in contact every day the entire summer after the wreck, offered to talk to the baseball programs at the colleges that had offered scholarships, see if they could keep a spot open for him while he did physical therapy. They'd all known is was dropping a bucket into an empty well, and after a while Louis hadn't been able to stomach it anymore. So he'd stopped picking up the phone, and he'd made sure he was good and gone the few times Coach had ventured out to the house to try and talk some sense into him.

It's one of the things he can't let himself off the hook about, ever. Maybe if he'd kept trying a little bit longer, no matter how much every single rejection or apology from the college teams had broken him down, maybe if he'd just kept at it...

_Too little, too late._

_It's been over a year,_ he tells himself, gritting his teeth. _Get over it._

He forces himself to look up and meet Coach's eye, but his eyes snag on the old silver class ring glinting on Coach's hand. It stuns him, throws him back to that afternoon in Harry's Mustang, _Romans 8:18_ inscribed perfectly on the inside of that silver band. He grits his teeth again, meets Coach's eye for real this time.

"I've been doing a lot better," he says, and it's not even a lie. "My shoulder still gives me hell some days, but my knee is good as new." He sticks his leg out like his jeans-clad knee will prove his point.

Coach beams at him, lit up the way he'd get when he knew they were heading towards a win. "If anyone could hardhead their way back from a mess like that, it'd be you."

The checkout line inches forward, momentarily disrupting the conversation.

Louis finishes loading his gifts onto the counter, floating a little, like he's dreaming.

"Actually," Coach says, and he's never been the kind of man to say anything carefully, but he's toeing the line now, "we've been looking for a pitcher."

Louis stops breathing.

Coach hurries on. "It's just a local thing, you know. I started coaching the Duluth men's team last year when I retired from the school-" Louis'd forgotten, somehow, that Coach had retired. It's such a strange idea- that the Screaming Devils baseball team still exists without Coach Brown, same as it kept existing without Louis. "Anyway, we're having tryouts in the spring."

"Huh," Louis says, because his brain seems to've been replaced by a loud high-pitched shriek. The cashier is nearly done scanning his things, and he watches the total rise on the cash register without really taking in the numbers. Coach waits until Louis has gotten his change back and loaded the shopping bags into the cart before he speaks again.

"You should come by if you've got time," Coach says, thumping Louis on his good shoulder. "Even if you just help me spot talent."

Louis hears himself say, "Alright, I'll try," like someone else is speaking through his mouth. He feels dizzy, the strangest mix of dread and euphoria.

He doesn't mention it to anyone.

He comes close the week before Christmas, when Harry's invited him over for something he says is Really Important. He takes Louis' hand and leads him up the stairs to his bedroom, flipping on the light and stepping to the side so Louis can enter the room first. Louis frowns, suspicious, until he spots the pile of opened letters on Harry's bed.

Opened _acceptance_ letters.

Louis stops in his tracks, eyes raking over the four different piles of paperwork. His feelings can't seem to decide on any one thing- pride, bitterness, happiness, irritation, relief. He turns to Harry, hands on his hips, and Harry just stands there leaning against the wall, nervous dimpled grin in place.

"I thought about what you said at the end of the summer, so Gemma helped me send in some early admissions applications. I still don't know if I want to take a year off or not, but..."

Louis looks back at the acceptance letters, goes over and runs his fingers across the embossed seals on the fancy stationery. His hands are shaking, and he can't quite pick out what that's about.

"Did all these come today?" he asks, eyes zeroing in on one particular acceptance letter. The California address runs through him like an electric shock.

"No," Harry admits sheepishly, "I just wanted to wait until I got all the answers before I showed you."

"That's really..." Louis clears his throat, tears his gaze away from that one fucking letter. "That's sick." He turns back to Harry, and Louis doesn't even have to fake a smile because he is so ridiculously proud, even though he hasn't even known Harry long enough to've had any impact on him getting into any of these schools, no matter what Harry seems to think. "Overachiever as usual."

He wants to mention the baseball thing, running into coach, how he's considering it- playing again, even though it's just for a pick-up team that doesn't mean anything. But Harry's got real actual meaningful acceptance letters on his bed, things that matter, so Louis decides to leave it for now.

* * *

 

 The trailer is dark when they pull up, but the woods behind it are lit up with strings of Christmas lights and one bonfire raging in the distance. The beagles are howling but nearly drowned out by the loud music booming from Cooter's crackly, home-rigged speaker system. Harry’s hands are white-knuckled on the steering wheel of the Range Rover and Louis kind of wants to laugh at him.

“No reason to be nervous,” Louis says brightly. “It's just a bunch of rednecks.” Harry flinches at the word and Louis is enjoying this _way_ too much. He imagines Harry feels maybe half as out of place at the Tomlinson family Christmas gathering as Louis'd felt at Anne Styles' fancy Thanksgiving dinner.

“I’m not nervous,” Harry snaps, voice edging into a whine, which means he’s _very_ nervous.

_Bless his heart,_ Louis thinks, gleeful. He grins in the dark, pushes his door open and tosses a, “I hope they’ve got the possum on the fire already. I’m starving,” over his shoulder.

Harry looks distinctly unamused, which amuses Louis greatly. They come together in front of the Range Rover, engine still popping hot behind them. It all looks a little magical from this perspective, the shadows cast high and almost sinister by the flames through the branches, the Christmas lights adding an unreal kind of glow to the thick night air. Louis wonders how Harry sees it- if it looks beautiful or backwoods, or both in that achy heart kind of way it does to Louis.

In the distance, someone whoops, and Louis hears his own mother’s laugh ringing high in the air, someone else hollering for the jukebox to be turned up. It’s chaos inside that ring of light, and Louis aches for it and dreads it all at once. He'd avoided the Christmas get-together last year, dreading the questions and looks that'd been waiting for him. He's not stupid enough to think they aren't waiting still, but having Harry here makes it easier somehow, takes some of the pressure off.

Beside him, Harry blows out a long breath, and it’s almost cold enough to see it, the ghost of it disappearing into the dark. “I know you think I don’t belong here,” Harry says softly, and Louis can’t help but look over at his face, profile etched out in the flickering firelight, “but God, I want to.”

Louis turns away quickly so he won’t be caught looking when Harry’s eyes dart over to him, teeth set in his own lower lip, waiting for a reaction, but Louis doesn’t have anything to give him. He wants to grab Harry's hand and pull him through the dark and into that ring of light, but he settles for just leading the way, trusting Harry to follow.

Every bit of Louis' extended family from his mother's side is spread out across the yard. Cooter's underneath the lean-to, poking away at a massive metal pot that fills the air with the smell of spice and shrimp. Harry sniffs at the air conspicuously, his stomach growling, and Louis snorts.

It's like being tossed into a tank of piranhas- the movie ones that strip a cow in seconds, not the crappy real piranhas that are just fish with pointy teeth. The minute they come into the light, Louis' being pulled in about a thousand different directions at once with Harry obediently drifting behind him. The questions change a little each time but the theme is always the same- _so what are you going to do now?_

And then, of course, _you still playing ball?_

That one's always accompanied by a hopeful look, a beseeching, desperate sort of longing that turns Louis' stomach. He can feel Harry standing at his shoulder, how he tenses every time one of Louis' endless great-aunts or third cousins gives him that _look_ \- the one that boils down to _you were our greatest hope, you were supposed to be something, what are you still doing here?_

He's breathless and exhausted after half an hour, face aching from the smile he's had plastered on his face, teeth pulsing from being gritted around every single, "Nah, I haven't been able to play ball in a while."

It comes to a head at his hundred-and-seven year old grand-something whose name he can't even recall. She gives him the most disappointed look, her wrinkled thin-skinned hands shaking where they rest on her lap. "Always thought I'd see you playing for the Braves before I died," she wheezes, voice weak like she plans on keeling over right here just to spite him. "It's too bad," she says wistfully, sounding as tired as Louis feels.

He stands speechless in front of her rocking chair, ears ringing so loud he can't even hear the music. He wants to apologize, but it's too much, suddenly.

Because that'd been his stupid, naive dream, too. It's why he still keeps his baseball mitt under the seat of his truck, can't throw it out even though it feels like it's killing him some days, just knowing it's there. It's why he's still got the Braves cap his shitty dad gave him when he was five, tucked away in a corner of his closet where he never has to look at it.

Louis opens his mouth, throat so dry he can't even get a sound out.

"Sorry," Harry cuts in, sweeping between Louis and the wizened old witch of a relative. "I think Mrs. Jay is calling him."

She doesn't get a chance to answer before Harry's pulling Louis away, out of the ring of firelight and back into the dark, past the beagle pen out into the woods. They walk until Louis can just make out the hint of music, can't distinguish any conversations. The party fades and fades until it's just light in the distance, and then Harry finally stops.

The breath Louis drags in is shaky, and it makes him realize he hasn't properly breathed in a while.

Harry breaks the silence with a quiet, " _Jesus._ "

Louis looks up at him, eyebrows raised. His mouth tastes sour, like he might've been sick if they'd stayed any longer.

"I can't believe _I_ was nervous," Harry mumbles, looking back towards the party. He's frowning, hands fisted a his sides. It takes Louis a moment to realize Harry's _irritated_ , maybe even angry.

"They mean well," Louis says, trying to make himself believe it as well. He crosses his arms over his chest, wishing he'd worn a heavier jacket. Away from the fire, it's actually truly cold.

"Still," Harry says, then stops himself. He chews his lip, looking back at Louis. "Still," he says again, shaking his head. He meets Louis' eyes, head-on, intense, determined.

They stay for another moment until Louis' breathing returns to normal, and when they head back into the light, it's like Harry turns into a new person. Everyone who even looks like they might ask Louis a question gets _the full Harry Styles treatment_ as Louis starts calling it in his head after about the third time. Harry smiles at them in a way that seems to daze them, and then he just _talks_. Soon everyone knows he's Anne Styles' son, and then it's like everyone forgets Louis ever did anything at all because they just want to ask Harry about Coca-cola cakes.

He's really something, Louis thinks, watching Harry charm a gaggle of relatives with a story about how he'd nearly burned down the bakery a while back.

After dinner, everyone's so full that it seems like they haven't got the energy even for interest in Harry Styles, and the music edges back up in volume as people start to trickle away, taking young children off to bed or going for walks out in the woods to catch up.

It seems like time for Harry to go, and Louis' still a little embarrassed about earlier. He's gone so far as tugging Harry up out of his chair and leading him out of the firelight back towards the Range Rover when when familiar opening chords float out of the ring of light, out to them in the dark.

It’s a scene Louis’ been a part of a thousand times before, and it’s strange to see it from this side- Patsy Cline crooning away on the beat-up old jukebox, everyone’s voices hushing away, listening to her go _walking....after midnight...._ while they drift into pairs, fall together and twirl slow around the fire pit. The party won’t go long after this since there’s never been a song that could follow Patsy and do a party any good, as far as Louis’ learned.

He feels Harry move before he sees it, the tentative hand brushing Louis’ waist. When he turns into it to see what Harry wants, another hand settles on his other hip, and then somehow they’re dancing, swaying close out in the dark until Louis’ chin is on Harry’s shoulder and his arms are draped loose around his neck.

“Harry,” he warns, though on second thought his voice doesn’t come out as much of a warning at all. He can see his mom by the fire, swaying with her head resting on his grandpa’s shoulder, same as they’ve been doing since Louis was a little boy- since his mom was a little girl, even. All that time.

Every bit of Louis feels raw, tender and open and singing. He closes his eyes, rests his forehead against Harry's shoulder and lets himself breathe the smoke from the fire and Harry's warm skin and the ever-present pines. It's not like he's falling in love with Harry Styles.

“It’s just practice,” Harry mumbles, low and soft, doesn’t have to talk loud anyway since Louis’ ear is right there by his mouth, near enough to feel his breath. “For prom.”

But then again, Louis thinks, watching the other couples dancing in the warm glow of the firelight over Harry’s shoulder, then again maybe he is. Just a little. Just a touch.

Just enough that when Harry’s lips brush his neck accidentally-on-purpose, Louis doesn’t push him away.

The end of the song drains every bit of energy Louis had left. His eyes are heavy and he doesn't want Harry to leave.

"Prom, huh?" he asks, voice muffled against Harry's flannel shirt.

"Or something," Harry concedes quietly. Louis can feel him smiling, like it radiates.

Louis finally manages to pull himself away, except the fingers of one hand that stay curled in the warm fabric of Harry's collar. "Get home, Styles. Your mama's gonna be worried."

Harry's eye are bright in the dark and he turns his face so that his cheek touches the back of Louis' outstretched hand. "See you soon, right?"

"Soon as you want."

He watches Harry leave with the strangest feeling in his gut, like he wants to laugh for no reason at all. He wonders if anyone saw them dancing, if Lottie's going to give him shit for the next hundred years. He doesn't go to bed until he gets Harry's text letting him know he'd made it home safe and _Tell your mama thanks for inviting me. I had fun._

Fun doesn't seem like the word for it, but Louis isn't sure what he'd want to call it either.

* * *

The winter break is flying by faster than it has any right to, and Harry's starting to get what all those people were saying about how time is wasting. He's got to actually commit to one of those colleges, and he's got to plan the whole yearbook (which he has, admittedly,  been slacking on), and he's got to spend time with his friends, and he has to plan their spring break trip to the beach, and he has to do all of that while he carries this feeling for Louis around in his chest like the bonfire from Christmas jumped out of the fire pit and burrowed into his heart.

When he Skypes Gemma on Christmas morning, he doesn't get a word out before she whistles, long and low, and says, "That bad, huh?"

He can't even pretend he doesn't know what she's talking about. The background on his phone is a picture Lottie had taken of Louis trying to throw pieces of shrimp in Harry's mouth at the low country boil. He turns his phone to the camera so she can see it over the grainy Skype connection.

She whistles again, grinning at him. He wishes she were home instead of snowed into her apartment.

"Will you be back for my graduation?" he asks, just to be sure, even though he knows she wouldn't miss it for anything.

Predictably, she rolls her eyes. "Yes, idiot. I'll be there to make fun of you and your boyfriend. I'll tell him all about how you drew little hearts around his yearbook picture-"

"He's not my boyfriend," Harry whines, and then scowls at her. "And I didn't do that."

"When you lie, your nostrils get bigger."

He flips her off and ends the call, then calls back a moment later to wish her a merry Christmas.

* * *

 

The thing about acceptance that blows is that it seems to be conditional. Conditionally, Louis has accepted that Zayn is in California and that they don't talk. Conditionally, Louis has accepted that he isn't headed to play major league ball no matter what his seven year old self really, really believed. His seventeen year old self, even.

Running into Mrs. Lagrange, the high school art teacher, pisses all over his conditions.

"Oh, you still do photography, Harry? Where are you going to college?"

"I'm not sure yet, ma'am, but I got into a few schools-"

Louis'd let his mind drift, let his guard down while he sat at the one table in the bakery, waiting on Harry to finish up his shift.

The mention of California had perked his ears up real quick, and he hadn't missed Harry nervously glancing over at him.

Mrs. Lagrange is beaming. "Oh, _California._ You'll do well there-"

"Like I said," Harry cuts in politely, charming as ever, "I haven't decided-"

"You know, my best student- you remember Zayn Malik- he went off to California, too." She sighs dreamily, eyes faraway. "I was always so worried he'd get stuck here- those friends of his were never going anywhere, and I always worried they'd drag him down-"

Harry's mouth drops open, gaping at her, and she pauses, looking around suddenly like she'd forgotten where she was. She spots Louis in the corner and her lips purse, face blanching. He stares back at her, heart hammering away in his chest.

"Oh- Mr. Tomlinson," she says, tripping over his name like she'd nearly forgotten it. "What-" He sees her physically stop herself from asking _what have you been up to?_ "How've you been?"

He grabs his keys from the table, hands shaking. "Stuck," he spits, brushing past her out the door.

 Louis hasn’t even managed to shut his truck door before Harry's climbing into the passenger seat and saying, “You’re pissed off,” in a voice that says he isn’t going to just let it go.

“I’m not pissed off,” Louis says anyway, because he is, a little, but not at Harry, and he doesn’t particularly want to talk about it.

"I'm sorry about- when I applied for that school, I wasn't thinking about the Zayn thing- I didn't even know-"

Louis stares straight ahead, counting the smudges on the windshield and keeping his hands fisted in his lap while he breathes himself calm enough to answer. “I know this will be a big fucking shock, but not everything is about you, okay? And not everything is about Zayn. Sometimes people feel shit that doesn’t revolve around Harry Fucking Styles or Zayn Goddamn Malik.”

A vicious, angry part of himself wants to watch that blow land, see the blood cloud the water, but the bigger, heavier piece of his mind just wants to go to sleep and forget most of that conversation happened. He’s not mad at Harry, but he will be, he knows, if they keep on for much longer.

“You always do that!” Harry groans, waving hand between them. “You act like I’m too- I’m too naive or whatever to know anything. I’m not! You can’t avoid everyone and everything and then get mad when people think you-”

The world washes red for a second, the breath catching in Louis’ throat from how quickly he gets really, properly pissed off.

"People think I what?" Louis asks carefully, throat tight.

God, there’s no answer to this that will end well. Louis can already see the rest of his life laid out after this- waking up before dawn to break his back and coming home to fall into bed, no one speaking to him, no Harry, nothing to break up the relentless nothing of every single day. God.

“That you gave up! That you- that you could’ve done anything, and you just didn’t. And it's like you’re mad at everyone else because you gave up. And that’s bullshit.”

It’s almost surprising how quickly the anger drains out, exhaustion rushing in to take it’s place. Louis turns the key in the ignition, coaxing the truck to life.

“You’re just not going to say anything?” Harry asks, his own voice dropping back to a more reasonable volume, nerves audibly creeping in.

Louis backs out of the parking lot, flicking the lights on when they get out on the road. “I’m taking you home.”

Harry fishmouths, reaching for his seat belt reluctantly and clicking it into place. “I just... I’m sorry, alright? I just don’t understand why you- why you think you’re stuck here. Why you let people like her get to you. Like why- what have we been doing, you know, if you- what are you going to do?”

Louis doesn’t laugh, but it’s a near thing. If he weren’t so fucking tired-

“Here’s how it will go,” he says evenly. “I’ll work at the taxidermy shop until Coot gets too old and we have to shut it down. Then I’ll get a job at the pulp mill in Duluth-”

“You won’t work at the _mill-_ ” Harry cuts in, sounding disgusted, almost, and Louis rolls his eyes.

“It’s a job, Harry. Why wouldn’t I work at the mill? My dad worked at the mill.”

“Yeah, but your dad- everyone knows what your dad was like.”

The ancient brakes shriek to a halt, engine and frame groaning at the unexpected change in speed.

“I’m not going to ask you what that means, and you’re not going to tell me. I am going to tell you what the future holds, alright? Because I know. I’m going to work in the fucking mill, and you’ll go to some nice as fuck college somewhere far as hell from here, and you’ll realize all of this-” Louis waves his hand dismissively at the inside of the truck, the highway, himself- “isn’t good enough for you.”

Harry scowls at the road ahead. “I grew up here, too, you know. I don’t look down on this place like you think I do- like _you_ do! You’re the one who pushed me to apply to schools in the first place! I'm happy here, working at the bakery and being around you.”

Louis rolls his eyes, bouncing his forehead against the window. “Oh fucking please, Styles. I’m not saying it’s some moral failing on your part to want to get away from this shithole. This place isn’t good enough for _anyone_ , but you’ve got the money and the brains and the _chance_ to get out.” He shrugs, willing himself to calm down a little and loosen the tight lines of his shoulders so he at least _looks_ like he doesn’t want to fight. When he feels like he can look at Harry without screaming, he does, dropping his head back against the headrest taking a deep breath before glancing over to check on him, the way Harry’s shoulders have crept up to his ears, defensive. The next time Louis speaks, he softens his voice. “It’s what I’d do now if I had even half the opportunities you’ve got, Styles. I had all the chances in the world and I fucked it up. Don’t be stupid.”

The noise Harry makes is guttural frustration. “It’s not _stupid_ to want something different than what you think I should want!”

_Agree to disagree_ , Louis thinks.

His silence only seems to spur Harry on, gives him time to work himself back up into a real fit, because his next words hit like a heavy blow to the back of the skull, the kind of force that takes a windup, a long simmer. “You can’t be pissed off at me for not really wanting to leave after the way you treated Zayn when he-”

It’s got to even off, at some point, Louis thinks. He holds onto that belief desperately as he squeezes his eyes shut against another cresting wave of rage. And it does level off after a few breaths, leaving him boneless and more exhausted than ever, head in his hands with the strangest, most surreal urge to laugh bubbling up in him like poison.

He doesn’t know what he’s going to say until he says it, and it’s not as mean as he’d half-hoped, half-feared. He just sounds tired. “You’re so _young_.”

“I’m only two years-”

“Just _stop,_ Styles, okay? Fuckin’ Christ.” Louis scrubs his hands across his face a few times, trying to wake himself up, trying to even figure out where to _begin. “_ I meant it when I said not everything’s about you. I know it's stupid to let people get to me- but you can’t even imagine what it’s been like, the way people look at me. And I’m _glad_ you can’t, because it’s shit. It’s horseshit. I don’t want you to wake up a few years down the road and realize that all anyone ever sees when they look at you is what you mighta been.”

It hits home. Harry’s mouth pops open, eyebrows drawing together in a near-pained expression. “I don’t- that’s not how I-”

“It is, though,” Louis cuts in. “All you been trying to do since summer is turn me into what you thought I should be. And I get it. It’s real hard when you start to see that shit don’t always turn out the way it should. I know. But I’m so fucking tired, Harry. I can’t hold your hand waiting for you to grow the fuck up and realize that you can’t throw a tantrum and change other people.”

It’s quiet for a long time after that. Harry finally takes a deep, shaky breath.

“I’m sorry for bringing Zayn into it. I know that was wrong, especially since I don’t know what happened with you two.”

“I keep telling you, Styles. Nothing happened. Sometimes that’s just how things go.”

Louis knows he should apologize for being a jackass, but Harry's already talking again before he gets the chance.

“But I’m not sorry for bugging you about baseball. And I’m not sorry for wanting to stick around here.”

It's such an honest thing to say that Louis can't even fault him for it. He just cranks the truck back up and starts driving, says, “I know you’re not.”

They're nearly to Harry's house when he breaks the silence to ask, “Are we okay?”

It takes a moment, but Louis finally manages to answer. “Not right now. But give it a little while.”

* * *

 

_A little while_ drags a day into a week into a month. The closest Harry sees to Louis for the whole of January is when Lottie Tomlinson pops into the bakery one afternoon, bundled up in a bright turquoise secondhand coat and looking at Harry with such open, unabashed curiosity that he ends up ducking his head, embarrassed.

“What can I get you?”

She leans on the counter, arms crossed, unimpressed. “What happened with you and my brother?”

“Nothing,” Harry says, remembering Louis’ voice all too clearly, telling him _things are just like that sometimes._

Lottie snorts, rolling her eyes. “I'm not an idiot. Why haven't you been hanging around?"

Harry pays extra attention to straightening some cookies on a tray. "We kind of had an argument."

She levels him with a shrewd, calculating look that makes him nervous. "Did you do something shitty or was he a jackass about something dumb?"

Harry feels like she probably isn't old enough to use words like _shitty_ or _jackass_ , but he also feels like he doesn't want to get on the wrong side of another Tomlinson. "I kept bothering him about baseball. And then this old teacher said some awful stuff about-" He stops short of saying Zayn's name, unsure how much Louis' family knows about that whole situation.

Lottie just rolls her eyes. "I already told you I'm not an idiot." She snatches a cookie off the tray, wincing when Cooter Tomlinson's old truck honks at her from the parking lot. "Anyway," she says, "he'll get over it. He misses you, I think."

It makes Harry impossibly bashful to hear it from Louis' own sister. He wants to bug her for details, ask how she knows, but he doesn't even have to.

"He's been a miserable jerk for weeks," she confides, taking another cookie. "But I think he's coming around. He seems different."

The truck horn blares again before he can ask her anything else, and she shoves two more cookies in her coat pockets before turning and skipping out the door. Harry thinks he'd be able to tell she was a Tomlinson even if he'd never seen her before in his life.

Things don't exactly feel empty waiting on Louis, because Harry still has so much to do, but it never stops feeling like he's waiting for something.

January passes into February, and Harry leaves the bakery on his birthday to find a small, shoddily wrapped gift sitting on the Range Rover hood. He's smiling before he even opens it, and by the time he gets the paper off, he's laughing. It's just a bundle of weeds and yard flowers and a note that says _for your stupid scrapbook, sorry I haven't been around to help- L_

It still feels like he's waiting, but it's bearable after that.

* * *

 

Louis' gone over what he's going to say roughly ten billion times, so he shouldn't be half as nervous as he is when Harry steps out onto the porch, easing the door shut behind him. Even though it’s middle of the night, windy-wet late February cold, Harry’s barefoot, wearing nothing but threadworn gray sweats pushed up his calves.

The thing is, Louis’d had a plan about what he was going to say. It wasn’t particularly good, but it was a _plan_. The moment the door snicks shut and Harry turns to look at him, so impossibly close after weeks of nothing, every single word Louis’d halfway been thinking flies right out of his head.

There are pillow creases on Harry’s cheek. His hair’s pulled back in a ridiculous bun, loose strands curling free around his neck and temples, shining in the washed-out porch light. His bare chest is both broader and paler than the idea of it Louis’d had in his head before this moment, and he’s only spared embarrassingly staring because Harry’s crossed his arms against the chill.

Louis takes a deep, steadying breath, asks, “Wanna go somewhere?”

To Harry’s credit, he looks only mildly surprised, shifting slightly and chaffing his hands over his biceps while he considers.

“Is the heat on in your truck?” he asks, and his voice is pitched so low and graveled that it nearly knocks Louis back a step, has him blinking rapidly in surprise.

“Hot as hell,” Louis confirms, rocking back onto his heels and shoving his hands into his pockets. “Even let you wear my letterman jacket like you probably always wanted.”

He means it as a joke, but he’s looking for it when Harry’s eyes light up, though they keep their faces carefully neutral.

“I guess I’m free,” Harry says, face splitting into a bright grin, and he’s a little devastating with his puffy eye-bags and red-chapped lips. He glances back at the front door, chewing his lip for a moment, then shrugs, grimacing at Louis. “Don’t want to risk waking Mom up to go get shoes. Don’t reckon you’d carry me?”

Louis snorts, twisting his mouth into a flat line so he won’t give in and smile. “No, don’t reckon I would. Now get in the damn truck before you freeze. Making me cold just looking at you.”

Harry hops across the wet-frozen grass, hissing when it crunches under his bare feet. He flings himself into the truck well before Louis is done making his much more casual way across the lawn.

“J-jacket,” Harry stutters, teeth chattering as he leans forward on the seat, cozying up the the heat blasting from the vents.

“Under the seat,” Louis tells him, buckling himself in and fiddling with the rear-view mirror while Harry digs around under the seat.

The jacket isn’t the first thing Harry finds, and he makes a confused noise in the back of his throat when he pulls something else out into the light of the truck cabin. Louis’ stomach drops, but it’s mostly out of habit now. Harry cradles the worn leather glove like it’ll disintegrate, thumbs brushing the hide-stitching. He doesn’t ask, just holds it in his lap while he reaches back under the seat, digging until he pulls out the letterman jacket Louis hasn’t looked at in over a year.

“Bet it’s too small,” Harry says lightly, like he hasn’t still got Louis’ catcher’s mitt sitting on his thighs.

“Bet you’re too fucking small,” Louis shoots back, rolling his eyes. He puts the truck in reverse and eases out of the driveway, willing the engine to keep to a dull roar. They make it onto the highway without incident, and then it’s just the dark road stretching through the tall pines and Harry pulling on Louis’ letterman jacket, the white leather sleeves glinting in the occasional passing drive-lights.

Louis steals a glance when Harry’s not really looking and his chest tightens, fingers flexing involuntarily on the steering wheel. He looks good. He always, Louis can admit now, looks good, and he looks heartbreakingly, especially good in Louis’ letterman jacket.

“Fits,” Harry points out, stretching his arms out and examining the lettering on the shoulder, Louis’ name stitched on the front-left breast. “You must’ve gotten a size up. Did you think you’d keep growing or something?”

“I’ll park right here and you can walk your ass home, how’s that for a size up?”

Harry grins, turning his face against his own shoulder like it’ll hide anything. “Mmmm, no, I’m alright.” He wiggles around until he can get his feet up on the seat, turning to rest his back against the door and pushing his heels up against Louis’ thigh, knees cocked up awkwardly between them. “So where are we going?”

“Somewhere,” Louis hedges, unnaturally aware of the way Harry’s still holding the mitt, tracing the cracked age lines with his fingers.

“Somewhere like where you always go at night,” Harry guesses, looking and sounding incredibly smug. Louis briefly considers turning the truck around and going right the fuck home, just to wipe the smirk off Harry’s face.

“Just somewhere,” Louis says again, but he knows Harry sees through it somehow.

The drive out to the baseball field takes long enough for Louis to talk himself out of and back into the idea of telling Harry roughly thirty times. They pull into the grass lot and Harry sits straight in his seat, squinting out into the patch of ground illuminated by the headlights.

Louis expects him to say something- _that makes sense_ or _I knew it_ , just something, anything smug and throwaway. What he finally says takes Louis by surprise.

“How do you get in?” he asks, brows knit in concentration while he tries to figure it out.

Louis pushes his door open, wincing at the chill that rushes into the warm cabin, but Harry’s already standing in the high grass, pulling his jacket closed over his chest and starting towards the chainlink fence.

When they get there, Harry steps back and watches Louis scale it, and when Louis drops to the ground and turns back, Harry’s still standing on the other side, fingers twined through the chainlink.

“Can I come in?” he asks, and it isn’t a joke. He’s not making fun of Louis and the hundreds of nights he’s spent out here by himself. He’s just making sure he’s welcome. Louis likes him. Probably has for a while, but god, in this moment, he really, really likes him.

Louis steps back to the fence, twisting his fingers through the same links as Harry’s so they’re intertwined and their palms rest together on either side of the freezing metal. Harry’s eyes dart from one side to the other, resting on the places they’re touching before his eyes drop back to Louis’ face, mouth slightly open.

“Think you can come in,” Louis says, stepping back and shrugging one shoulder. “Just be careful. Don’t cut up your feet.”

“Yeah,” Harry says, but he doesn’t sound like he’s really paying attention to his own mouth. He grips the fence, looking up at the top like he’s trying to measure the distance and understand how to cross it with his own body. He’s graceless when he starts to climb, feet slipping and toes sprawling between the iron diamonds of the chain link. He doesn’t really climb over the top so much as he launches himself, landing in a painful-sounding heap at Louis’ feet.

“You’re getting my jacket dirty,” Louis points out, nudging Harry’s side with his toe.

“I’ll get it dry-cleaned,” he wheezes, sitting up and wincing. “How do you make that look so easy?”

“Practice.” Louis pulls him to his feet, brushing the red clay from his back. “And natural grace. Guess how many of those things you’ve got?”

“Shut up,” Harry laughs, shoving Louis away. He looks cold- and must be, toes digging into the dirt, lips shaking. Louis realizes he can’t actually button the letterman jacket because it’s just a little too tight.

He doesn’t seem bothered, though, curiously walking out to the pitcher’s mound, stepping up onto the bag and balancing with his arms stretched out, spinning to face Louis across the dark space between them.

“I think I can see why you’d love it out here,” he says, voice carrying syrupy through the cold air. “It’s so empty. And something else....”

“Centered,” Louis says, making his way to the mound and standing in front of Harry. “This is the center of the universe.”

Harry drops his arms, looking down at Louis in a way Louis can only describe as _quiet_.

“You miss it?” Harry asks, and he’s asked before, but not like this. Not in a way Louis could answer honestly.

“Like a tooth,” Louis admits, leaning forward to drop his forehead against Harry’s collarbone. Harry breathes, a steady rise and fall broken only by the chattering of his teeth. He doesn’t say anything else, just lets Louis gather his thoughts and his courage while he watches the goosebumps rise in waves across Harry’s chest.

It’s a virtue, probably, the quiet, still sort of patience Harry possesses sometimes. Young as he is, naive and open and bright as he is- it’s still easy to let the moment breathe.

Louis draws in a shaky breath, letting it rattle down his dry throat and ache his teeth. “I’m trying out for the local men’s league in Duluth. Next month.”

Harry doesn’t state the obvious- that there’s probably not much _trying out_ involved in a local amateur men’s league, that it’s not a big deal, that it doesn’t, really, matter. He makes the softest noise in the back of his throat, like he might’ve gasped if he hadn’t already been preparing himself for something big. Then he wraps his arms around Louis’ shoulders, crushing him in so his face is buried between Harry’s skin and his own borrowed jacket.

“That’s so- that’s so great, Lou. That’s really great.”

And it sounds honest, and it sounds happy. It’s sincere enough to quiet, for now, the nagging voice in the back of Louis’ head that’s telling him all of this is just pushing off the inevitable weight of the boring, mediocre life he’s got coming.

They stay for a bit longer, walking the bases side by side, shoulders not quite not touching. Louis considers telling Harry about the rest of it, about running into his old coach and the phone conversations they've had since, about the mention of training tapes and the half-hopeful discussions of scholarships. About the college applications and financial aid websites Louis’d bookmarked on his laptop, been going through with Lottie when they’re both home and awake enough to work on it.

All of that seems so far off though, not immediate enough to be a worry between Harry and himself. By the time Louis knows anything for certain about any of it, Harry’ll be long gone. So he keeps it to himself, let’s himself bask a little in the looks Harry keeps throwing him, bright-eyed and proud.

The light’s still on in Harry’s bedroom when they pull into the driveway. Louis’ not sure what to do- the evening feels heavy, unfinished somehow. But there’s nowhere else to go. He’s bone-tired, and Harry’s been so quiet on the drive back that Louis’ mostly sure he’s asleep. Louis should wake him up, probably, tell him to go inside.

But he doesn’t. He puts the truck in park and melts back against the seat, letting his eyes close for just a moment. It’s strange because exhausted as he is, he feels good. Not quite happy, but open, like he could be happy soon.

“This song came out when I was three years old,” Harry says suddenly.

Louis cracks an eye open and glances sideways to where Harry’s leaned up against the passenger window, peering sleepily at the radio dial. The radio’s so low that Louis hadn’t even registered it over the sound of the truck running, but he reaches out to turn it up a few notches.

It’s a song Louis hasn’t heard in years. It’s probably because it’s going on four in the morning and the radio station is cranking out the nineties-oldies, some sort of Best Of mix for people who can’t sleep and need a nostalgic brand of comfort.

And it is nostalgic. Louis remembers it playing at family gatherings when he was a kid, his sisters and his mom and dad and everyone dancing- the way he’d danced with Harry not so long ago. And sometimes memories like that- of his dad, of his mom really happy and young and in love, sometimes they make him bitter. But LeAnn Rimes is soft and sweet enough that the nasty bits don’t get a chance to rise to the surface before he’s ducking his head and smiling into the sleeve of his jacket.

“You can’t remember that,” Louis says, turning slightly in the seat so his knee presses against Harry’s thigh.

Harry just shrugs, eyelids heavy and mouth quirking up at the corners. “I loved it when I was little. Used to dance around the kitchen with my mama- standing on her toes.”

It feels, a little, like the bottom falls out in Louis’ chest. It’s not really a bad feeling.

_Oh my love, my darling_

“I’ve wanted to kiss you since I was twelve years old,” Harry admits, so easily, heartbreakingly honest.

Louis nearly flinches, but it’s not like it’s unexpected. It’s not like he didn’t know, on some level, that they were heading here. But hearing it out loud with arguably the greatest love song of his childhood playing like a movie soundtrack in the background- he wasn’t really prepared for that.

That’s probably why he says, “You could.”

Harry doesn’t look at him right away, keeps staring out the front windshield, up at his bedroom window and the light shining through the thin curtains. Even from two stories up, it casts a sweet glow over his profile, softening his lines against the dark.

“It’s not the same now.” The corner of his mouth twitches down, not like he’s upset, just like he’s thinking. Louis waits, heart in his throat. “It’s so- you’re so different from what I thought when I just-” He huffs a little laugh, glancing down at his lap before turning to face Louis head-on, eyes bright and intense. “Different from how I thought you’d be when I was just a preteen going to baseball games to stare at your ass.”

Louis’ mouth pops open, ready to squawk offense- _I knew you always-_

“But it’s like-” The thing about Harry is that once he makes eye contact, he doesn’t really stop. The back of Louis’ neck is burning, hot-embarrassed, and he wants to look away. But it’s hard, and it’s fascinating, also, how it feels to be looked at like this. “I didn’t even know, then, what you could be. What you are.” He laughs again, startled by himself, crinkles forming around his puffy-tired eyes. “God, I even tried to tell you a while back, but even then I didn’t know.”

Louis remembers the conversation exactly. The hot afternoon on the water, and Harry looking at him like it was painful, how much they couldn’t understand one another. “Sublime,” Louis says, feeling the flush on his neck creep up to his cheeks. He wonders if Harry can see it, or if it’s too dark. If he even minds.

“Exactly,” Harry says emphatically, leaning forward so suddenly Louis doesn’t even have time to react. It doesn’t really matter anymore if Harry can see him blushing because he’s close enough to feel the heat radiating off Louis’ face. “It’s exactly like that. You’re exactly like that.”

Louis has a lot to say to that- how he could say exactly the same thing about Harry, how he, literally not even ten minutes ago, realized exactly the same thing. He doesn’t say any of it, though. There’ll be time later, probably, when Harry’s not taking a deep breath like he’s trying to pull all the air out the cab of the truck, darting quickly into Louis’ space like he thinks this might be his only chance at this. Louis’ squeezes his eyes shut, trying to remember how all this works- hopes it’s like riding a bike, or swimming.

Fast as it starts, it’s gentle- like the second their lips touch, even chapped rough and raw from the late-night chill, Harry settles, the breath he’d taken in seeping out soft between them.

Louis’ not surprised, somehow, that when he cracks an eye open, Harry’s already staring straight at him, eyes wide and green and close. The kiss is quick, but they’re still close enough that Louis can feel the grin stretch across Harry’s face.

“Your mama’s gonna kill me if she wakes up and finds you kissing me in your driveway,” Louis points out. God, when will his cheeks cool off?

“I kissed you,” Harry says, goofy and easyhappy. He looks so tired that Louis half-expects him to fall out any second.

Louis’ going to set a record for longest-running flush at this point. “You did. Dreams do come true, I guess.”

Harry’s face stays happy, but something in his eyes steels, not angry but serious. “They do, though,” he insists, leaning in again, pausing a beat before brushing his lips over the hottest point on Louis’ cheek. “I should go in before my mama wakes up and skins us both.”

“You should,” Louis agrees, his voice cracking embarrassingly high. Harry beams. He reaches behind himself to feel for the door handle, pressing another chapped kiss to Louis’s other windburnt cheek.

“I’m going inside now,” Harry says, pushing the door open but otherwise making no move to get out of the truck.

“Doesn’t seem like it.” Louis doesn’t really want him to go.

“Okay, just-” Harry sighs again, a soft puff of breath in the chilly air, ducking in to kiss Louis one last time, though it’s more a mash of his teeth against Louis’ mouth because he can’t stop grinning. “Okay.”

Louis pushes him away slightly, fingertips pressing indents into Harry’s bare chest. He’d forgotten, mostly, and his eyes dart down to the pale strip of skin revealed by Louis’ unbuttoned letterman jacket. It takes a shameful amount of effort to pull his eyes away and say, “Go inside. You’re letting the cold in.”

Harry, of course, makes it worse by looking smug, like he knows exactly what he’s doing, like he’d somehow planned this whole night years in advance. “Alright, I’m going inside.” He does get out this time, hopping down and wincing when the frosted grass crunches audibly under his feet. He hesitates, supporting his weight with one hand clenching the frame of the truck, head dipped down so he can look at Louis. He bites his lip like he’s debating something, like there’s anything he might ask tonight that Louis would say no to. “I’ll see you tomorrow?”

“Bright and early,” Louis agrees. He reaches out, doesn’t even know what he’s reaching for until Harry tangles their fingers together. It’s like he can see Harry’s heart beating overtime in his chest, his fingers shaking where they’re entwined with Louis’. Calm and confident as he seems, he’s still- Louis doesn’t know what exactly, but it’s good. Good to the core.

“Night,” Harry says, pulling away and doing a weird little salute before loping over to the porch, quietly opening the front door and letting himself in. Louis can see him smiling, just from the way his cheek’s bulging from behind. He’s so ridiculous.

Then again, Louis’ the one that says, “Night,” even though Harry’s already inside, door shut firmly behind him.

* * *

While fall semester had dragged by in a long haze of heat and lazy aimless afternoons, time is truly flying now. Harry swears he went to sleep after Christmas and blinked back awake with Spring Break looming over his head. It’s not that he isn’t looking forward to spending the week at a beach house with his friends. It’s just that this whole last semester ever of high school thing’s been a lot busier than he anticipated, and while lazing on a beach sounds great, the lack of _Louis_ in that plan is a dark spot on the horizon now that Louis is- now that _they’re-_ whatever they are.

And he’s _tried_ bringing it up to Louis multiple times, but that conversation always goes the same way. Harry’ll bat his eyelashes and muss his hair in a hopefully attractive manner, and he’ll casually mention something like, “It’d be nice to spend some more time together, wouldn’t it?” and bite his lip and pray. And then Louis’ll roll his eyes and say, “Not this again,” and Harry’ll say, “But-” and Louis’ll say some sarcastic crap about not wanting to interrupt Harry’s high school experience or _whatever_ , and Harry’ll try to look seductive instead of grumpy and say, “But _you’re_ my high school experience,” and then Louis’ll make the most disgusted face Harry’s ever seen and-

Well. That’s how that goes.

The last Friday before Spring Break ends with a midterm that leaves Harry exhausted but overall pleased with his performance, and he sits in the school parking lot long after everyone else has cleared out, tearing towards the week of freedom. He is, technically, supposed to go home and pack for the trip since he’s been putting that off, spending every bit of free time watching Liam and Niall help Louis train or working on all the endless checklists he has to accomplish before next fall.

He calls Louis instead, resting his head back against the seat and staring at the soft gray ceiling of the Range Rover. Louis picks up after four rings, sounding out of breath and surprised when he says, “Harry?”

“Hi,” Harry breathes, grinning up at the ceiling. “Passed my midterms.”

Louis snorts softly on the other end of the line. “Call the newspaper again. You done packing yet?”

“Haven’t started.”

They’re quiet for a moment, Harry breathing evenly and Louis’ breath slowly returning to normal as well. They've barely seen each other for more than fifteen minutes at a time since the night at the baseball field.

“You wanna go somewhere?” Harry asks, biting the inside of his cheek at the familiar cadence of it. Wonders if someday they’ll be able to ask to spend time together without saying it like that, like it’s some sort of throwaway spur of the moment decision. Even if it is, a little. Even though it's not necessarily a bad thing.

Louis hums, a pleased note like he recognizes the weight of it as well. “You driving?”

“Yeah- you at home? I can pick you up in twenty minutes.”

“Alright. Gives me enough time to shower. Liam’s been helping me practice for tryouts all day.”’ He says it with the tiniest inflection, the barest hint of pride. Harry’s heart thuds, ecstatic.

“See you in a few.”

It’s like the road between the high school and Louis’ house has tripled in length, and Harry spends the entire drive tapping nervously at the steering wheel, fiddling with the volume of the radio station he’s not even listening to. And then he’s there, dusty driveway, yellow trailer, Louis sitting on the porch swing with his head tipped back, eyes closed like he might be asleep.

Harry considers beeping the horn but figures it’s not worth the earful he’ll get if Louis is actually napping. It only takes a few seconds, anyway, before Louis’ cracking an eye open and peering out across the yard, sitting up with a lazy grin. He doesn’t hurry to get in the Range Rover, but it’s a near thing. His hair’s spiky-wet, skin flushed like he just got out the shower. Harry grips the steering wheel a little tighter, hoping his smile is relaxed and less leery-creepy than it feels.

“So what’s the plan?” Louis asks, buckling his seatbelt and immediately setting about messing with everything from Harry’s radio presets to the air conditioning.

“We can just go to the river, I guess? Hang out for a while. Feel like I haven’t talked to you in days.”

Louis carefully stays focused on his mischief, but his jaw ticks, eyes squinting like he’s pleased. “Well,” he says, sniffing importantly. “I’m a very busy person.”

They don’t talk about much on the drive to the river- Louis makes fun of Harry’s upcoming AP exams, tells him about the blue streak Niall swore after nearly twisting his bad knee up during their practice. Harry fills him in on all the plans the seniors have made for their beach house, who’s probably going to break up and get together and fight and- everything else.

When they reach the turnoff, Harry’s line of thought flags and he slows but doesn’t flip on his blinker. Louis’ voice trails off as well, hand flexing where it’s been resting on the console between them.

“We could keep going,” Harry suggests, throat oddly tight, pulse jumping in his wrists.

Louis shifts in his seat, pursing his lips before saying, careful and soft, “Alright. Just for a bit.”

_Just for a bit_ turns into three hours. Harry’s not really sure how it happens, but they see the upcoming sign for the interstate and he and Louis don’t mention it when Harry shifts into the right lane, heading east. They talk about everything else under the setting sun, sky going pink then deep purple, evening out to inky star-spotted blue- but they never seem to get around to how Buckhead is long past shrunk in the distance, how, if they had a GPS, they’d be watching themselves crawling along the map towards the coast.

“Pull off at the next exit,” Louis says, squinting out into the dark at the passing road signs. “Needed to piss for an hour.”

Harry snorts but does as he’s told, following the exit signs to a Parker’s and pulling up at one of the pumps. He fills up while Louis wanders inside, and when he’s done and Louis hasn’t returned, Harry follows. He finds Louis standing in front of the drink cooler, hand resting on the handle while he scans the lines of Coke products with his eyes.

“Having trouble?” Harry asks, dropping his chin onto Louis’ shoulder, face going warm where their cheeks touch.

He expects Louis to shrug him off, so he’s shocked still when Louis melts back against him, back slumped against Harry’s chest. “Want Mountain Dew, but Liam’s put me on some stupid training diet.”

Harry doesn’t say what he’s thinking- that a training diet seems like overkill for a local league Louis is already more than qualified for, that he suspects there’s something else going on- something that rhymes with _schmollege schmyouts_ if the hints Niall's been dropping for weeks are trustworthy. He focuses on the heat where their bodies line up, eyes carefully straight ahead. “He won’t know,” Harry reasons, smiling a little. Louis turns his head slightly and Harry breathes on instinct, catching the scent of spicy body wash, clean and sharp, a hint of grass like Louis hadn't quite managed to wash all the outdoors off with a quick shower.

He reaches around and pulls the cooler open, nudging at Louis to pick something. He does, grabbing a Mountain Dew and a Coke, rolling his eyes when Harry picks out a bottle of water.

“Jackass,” Louis mutters under his breath, ducking under Harry’s arms and heading for the snacks while Harry grins and trails behind him.

Louis looks absolutely disgusted when Harry picks out a pack of raisins, and he seems to be making up for Harry’s decision by loading his own arms with bags of Funyuns and the off-brand gas station gummy bears. “Grab some peanuts; my hands are full,” Louis tosses over his shoulder, making his way up to the counter where the clerk is watching them with a little quirk to her mouth like they’re funny.

“This all?” she asks, not sarcastic but teasing as Louis unloads his pile of junk food beside the register.

“His stuff, too.” Louis jerks his head back at Harry, who sets his measly stack of water, raisins, and peanuts down as well. “He’s paying- ain’t you, Styles?”

Harry rolls his eyes at the clerk, who purses her lips back at him, clearly trying not to laugh. She rings everything up, somehow managing to load it into a single plastic bag, and Harry pays while looking Louis in the eye the entire time, one eyebrow raised.

Louis just stares right back, unabashed, mouth turned up in a strangely soft sort of smirk that seems unique to him, like no one else in the world could look that sweet and sharp all at once. “Thanks,” Louis says, exaggeratedly simpering when Harry grabs their bag and takes his card back from the clerk.  He jokingly runs his hand lightly over the bicep of Harry’s free arm, winking at the clerk. “He’s going to be a fancy college boy soon. Have to let him provide for me.”

Harry doesn’t get a chance to defend himself because Louis’ hand snakes down the rest of his arm, twining their fingers together so he can pull Harry, speechless, from the store. They walk back across the empty lot, swinging their linked arms between them, squinting in the harsh service station light. When they reach the Range Rover, they break apart, Harry going to the driver's side, mind spinning, fingers flexing in the absence of Louis’ warm skin.

“I didn’t bring any money,” Louis says, shrugging his shoulders a little at the look Harry can’t stop giving him across the console. They don’t really acknowledge how that doesn’t explain the rest of it, the teasing, the way Harry can still feel the places Louis’ fingertips had pressed to the back of his hand. How he can't stop flexing his bicep like a jackass just in case Louis reaches out to touch it again.

“It’s okay,” Harry says belatedly, looking away and digging through the plastic bag in his lap, pulling out the Mountain Dew and passing it over to Louis. “Do you want Funyuns or-”

“Peanuts,” Louis decides. “And the Coke.”

Something in Harry’s brain sparks with an odd twinge of recognition, but it doesn’t occur to him until he’s watching Louis’ fingers deftly ripping open the little bag of salted peanuts, tipping them carefully into the open neck of the Coke bottle.

“Jesus, I haven’t seen anyone do that in years,” he says, watching the Coke fizz up, a few peanuts tumbling from the bag into Louis’ lap. “My grandpa used to take me and Gemma to the store when we were kids and-”

Louis’ smiling fondly down at the bottle as he pokes a few of the fallen peanuts back in and it’s such a gentle, private sort of happiness that Harry feels intrusive watching, but he can’t stop. “Was my grandma’s favorite,” Louis says, voice barely louder than the night noise from outside. “Every now and then I remember it, and I get to wanting it so bad it feels like a toothache.” His laugh is a breath in the dark, eyes darting over to Harry, curious. “Want some?”

“Yeah,” Harry answers immediately, though he can’t really remember the taste, whether he liked it or not as a kid. Louis passes him the bottle and Harry takes a swallow, nearly choking when one of the peanuts hits the back of his throat. He hacks, spewing Coke onto his shirt and coughing while Louis cackles, absolutely delighted. When he’s recovered enough to glare, Louis is looking slightly less entertained since he’s noticed some of Harry’s nose-Coke sprayed onto his own shirt.

“Ugh, really?” he whines, stretching it away from his body and scowling at Harry. “Care to try again?”

Harry laughs, hoarse and embarrassed, and he does give it another go, more careful this time. As soon as he crunches down on one of the Coke-softened peanuts it’s like he’s slammed back in time by the sense memory of it, sitting in the sun with his grandfather, feet dangling in the river and Gemma singing quietly to herself while she wades in the shallows. It’s not that it tastes particularly good, but he still spends a moment holding it in his mouth, eyes closed, remembering.

When he swallows and opens his eyes, Louis is watching him curiously, head tilted to the side. “Alright?” he asks quietly, taking the bottle and brushing his fingers over Harry’s knuckles, comforting. “Didn’t like it?”

“No, it was-” Harry clears his throat, which has gone rough for some reason. “It’s okay. It’s-”

“Different,” Louis suggests, tipping the bottle up and crunching on a few peanuts while Harry watches. “But also, just exactly the same as you remember, right? I like things like that, I think. Things that help you go back, but that aren’t necessarily- they don’t take you to something that could’ve been but never turned out.” His mouth twists down at the corner, and he scratches at the back of his neck, self-conscious. “Whatever that means.”

Harry wants to tell him he understands, but he feels like it would fall flat. He starts the car up and fidgets with the rearview mirror for a moment, trying to gather his thoughts into something reassuring. Louis’ quiet beside him, only making a sound when he swishes the Coke around or tips more peanuts in.

Harry should probably turn them around and start heading back to Buckhead. On the other hand, they’ve got a full tank of gas, a mound of snack food piled between them, and a second later Louis is reaching out to turn the radio up with an appreciative, “Love this song.”

So Harry gets back on the interstate, going east, and Louis seems to breathe a little easier. Somewhere past Waycross, Louis ends up slumped across the console, leaning far enough that his head rests lightly against Harry’s arm. A few exits after that, Harry’s managed to calm himself down and talk himself up enough to drop one hand from the wheel and place it carefully, barely-there against the hand Louis’ got resting between them.

It’s going on midnight, and Louis’ been breathing even and warm against Harry’s side for what feels like forever, fingers tangled loosely with the hand Harry’s let go to sleep by trying to keep still. The last exit before the coast rears up in the dark, big green interstate sign telling Harry it’s the end of the line, and he breathes a sigh of relief because he’s nearly lulled himself into a trance listening to Louis not-quite-snore next to him.

* * *

Louis wakes up to the sun peaking orangehot over the horizon, water not so much blue as steely metallic brown. He wonders, not for the first time in his life, how all those calendar pictures of glassy turquoise oceans can be real when every glimpse he’s had of the Atlantic has looked just like this- not exactly postcard beautiful, but dark and rough and vital. Harry’d probably be able to tell him, him and his stupid Environmental Science. _AP_ Environmental Science.

And speaking of Harry, he’s still snoring softly in the driver’s seat, head tipped back against the headrest, candy-pink mouth hanging open. His hand rests limp on the console between them and Louis’ fingertips tingle, remembering how he’d spent the better part of the six hour drive tracing the lines of Harry’s palm in the dark.

The windows are still cracked open, muggy salt air coating everything with a fine layer of grime, and the glare of the rising sun on the windshield will be unbearable soon.

Louis takes a deep breath, testing the feel of the crick in his neck from sleeping in the passenger seat, the ache at the bottom of his spine. When he lets the air out, he’s not exactly surprised to realize that he’s happy. Heart-swollen, simply happy, just to be where he is.

He twists in his seat, pulling a leg up so he can get a better look at Harry, the wrinkled state of his clothes and his hair two-day greasy and frizzed from the sea air. It’s strange to realize here, after he's spent an entire night with Harry right beside him, that he’s been missing him while they’ve both been so busy. That he'll probably miss him even more in the fall when he's up in New York.

Louis reaches out and slaps gently at Harry’s cheek, pinching a little. “Rise and shine, Styles. Time to head home.”

Harry groans, a dry, gravelly sound in the back of his throat, and when he cracks an eye open to glare at Louis, its bloodshot. “Go back to sleep,” he grumbles, voice a deep chest rumble that Louis _feels_ somewhere in the pit of his own stomach.

He shifts, undeterred, pinching Harry’s cheek some more until he’s raised a hectic pinky-red splotch and Harry’s shoving him away. “If you wake up now, we can walk on the beach for a bit before you have to drive us home,” Louis wheedles, softening his hand so he can run his thumb over the thin, swollen skin beneath one of Harry’s eyes.

Harry grumbles again but opens his eyes fully, staring at Louis across the console. He’s something else, orange glow of the sun lighting him from one side, eyes a nearly unsettling translucent green. “My mouth tastes horrible,” he croaks, grimacing.

“That’s what you get for eating all my fucking Funyuns,” Louis tells him, pushing open the car door and carefully stepping out into the morning air, knee and shoulder throbbing a bit while he stretches.

The beach is even less postcard-ready up close- no powdery white sand or pink seashells dotting the ground. It’s just brown again, muddy, marshy, coarse sand, a tidal smell that’s not exactly good or bad, but strong. Harry’s hand is warm, maybe too warm to be comfortable in the wet ocean air, but Louis drags him along the shore anyway, listening to Harry rattle off occasional facts about the coastal estuaries or whatever. Louis' ninety percent sure most of them are bullshit.

Louis’ brought up short by what might be the ugliest thing he’s ever seen, an alien-like brown monstrosity with little clawed legs waving feebly in the air. He makes an involuntary noise of shock, automatically stepping back, but Harry holds him in place.

“They’re helpless,” Harry says quietly. “It’s a horseshoe crab. They get stuck on land upside down like that and they die. We learned about them in environmental science-” Louis spares him the snort this one time. “Their blood is used to cure cancer, or something- but people, like, step on them, or kill them because they look freaky.”

It does look freaky  _and_ helpless, small claws waving aimlessly in the air. As unsettling and alien as it is, Louis still feels a sad lurch in his chest. “Can it hurt me?” he asks, frowning at it.

Harry blinks at him, confused. “I mean it’s not like it can run at you or anything-”

Louis rolls his eyes because that’s not at all what he meant. He lets go of Harry’s hand and edges closer, kneeling down and carefully grabbing the creature’s shell on either side, keeping his fingers well clear of the dangerous-looking spike of a tail. It’s heavier than he expected, and he carries it at arm’s length right up to the tideline, kicking his shoes off in the sand and wading out to his knees before dropping it unceremoniously into the water.

When he turns back to the beach, Harry’s standing at the edge of the water, Louis’ shoes dangling from one hand, and the expression on his face isn’t one Louis’ ever seen before. It’s not something he could even begin to place.

But it’s not bad. It’s definitely not bad.  

By the time they turn back to the car, they’ve tossed about six more horseshoe crabs back into the sea- Harry’d even done the last one, teeth clenched and jaw ticking uncomfortably while he sprinted out into the breakers to fling it away.

“Might’ve done more harm than good to that one,” Louis observes casually, shielding his eyes against blazing sunrise. Harry’s thrown back to that day last fall- all gold. He digs his toes hard into the gravelly sand, wanting fiercely to stay right where they are.

It must show on his face, because Louis’ mouth quirks up at one side, fond and exasperated. “Don’t look at me like that, Styles. You’re already gonna be late meeting your friends, even if we leave right now.”

Harry trudges out of the foamy water, moodily dragging his feet. “I like it here,” he says, all the petulant brat Louis’ ever thought he might be condensed into the pouty downturn of his bottom lip.

Louis just snorts, refusing to be charmed by it. Refusing to show that he's charmed by it. “You’ll like it here even more when you’re with about thirty of your friends, being idiots together. Now let’s go, alright?” He sticks out his hand, fingers stretched, waiting, and Harry blinks at him owlishly for a moment before heaving a massive put-upon sigh and complying.

The drive back to Buckhead is a lot different than the night before. There’s no hiding in the dark, no anonymity to the way their hands stay casually twined together on the seat between them.

* * *

 


	4. summer, again

* * *

 

 "Towns are the illusion that things hang together somehow... "

from _Plainwater: Essays and Poetry_

by Anne Carson

* * *

 

Graduation is sweltering hot- everyone’s blue and white robes absolutely drenched with sweat while they sit in fold-out chairs in the middle of the football stadium. It’s an event that feels, immediately, so surreal that Harry knows he’ll never remember a single moment of it correctly. When he thinks back, he’ll end up replacing a lot of what it actually was with what he expected it to be from movies. That’s alright, though; he’s got the main things down.

The first thing is that it’s so _fucking_ hot. It’s so hot and bright, and when he looks back in the crowd he spots Cara, cheekbones going vivid with sunburn, and he knows the same is happening to him.

Next, he knows his mom and sister are in the audience, because when his name gets called with the honor students, they yell so loud that the back of his neck goes as hot as his cheeks and he can’t stop grinning like an idiot.

Then there’s Louis. Harry spots him when the grads are all standing, turning to the crowd to flip their tassels at the end. He’s high up on the bleachers, next to his sisters and Niall Horan. The look on Louis’ face says he’s got a big secret to tell, and Harry only realizes he’s been staring with unnerving intensity when a shower of blue caps come raining down around him. It breaks his concentration, and he spins, laughing and tearing his own cap off to toss it, late but enthusiastic, high in the air.

On his search for his family and Louis, he gets waylaid by Cara, then Ed, and it seems like he must at one point or other stop and hug every single member of his graduating class, even people he hasn’t really spoken to since kindergarten. Through all the upsweeping joy of it, there’s a strange untethered feeling in his stomach, and he wonders what it means, if it’ll ever go away.

When he does finally get to Anne, he's buzzing and exhausted, and he collapses against her, trusting her to hold his weight when he slings his arms around her neck.

“So proud of you,” she says, nearly lost beneath the ruckus of a hundred other families having the same conversation. He means to pull his face away and say something to her, but his eyes feel embarrassingly full, so he stays put for a moment.

Staying there forever sounds really, really nice, actually, because that untethered feeling only seems to build the more time passes. But then his sister makes a funny noise, and when he peeks over Anne’s shoulder he finds Gemma with her arms wrapped around Louis, squeezing him half to death.

It’s a strange sight, like Harry’d managed to forget that they were friends, had replaced Gemma with himself in all his memories of Louis somehow. A little embarrassing, but Louis looks so- almost shy, actually, that it makes Harry pull away from Anne and laugh, startled.

Louis looks up, catching Harry’s eye, and he pulls away from Gemma with a whisper and pat on the back.

“Nice sunburn,” Louis says casually.

“I’m not wearing anything beneath this robe,” Harry shoots back, wiggling his eyebrows.

Anne is still, it seems, well within hearing distance, because she says, “Harry,” so flat and unimpressed that everyone laughs.

“He’s lying anyway,” Gemma assures Louis, evil glint in her eye. “He’s got on his lucky Power Rangers undies."

Harry scrunches up his face, ready to flip her off before he gets pulled into a group photo with Cara and a hundred other people. He wants to ask Louis what he's thinking about, why he looks like he's got something heavy and bright hanging off his chest, but every time he nearly breaks away from everyone, he gets pulled right back in. And every time he catches sight of Louis standing off to the side talking to Niall, he gets the feeling that Louis isn't in any hurry anyway, that he's alright waiting for Harry to live through this particular and necessary chaos.

The A/C in Louis' truck is doing its damnedest, wheezing away against the setting sun. Harry's ears are still ringing from all the conversation, and he wants to ask Louis when this weird feeling will go away but he isn't sure if it's even something he can put into words. He wonders if Louis felt the same thing, if he still carries it somewhere, if it's part of that far-off look he'd get sometimes. 

"So," Louis says, and Harry perks up, glad to have anything to focus on that isn't how strange he feels. "I wanted to wait until I knew for sure before I told you, but-"

"You got a scholarship," Harry blurts out before Louis even gets a chance to finish. He nearly claps a hand over his mouth, and the look on his face must be something because Louis starts laughing before he can even pretend to be upset.

"Niall can't keep his fucking mouth shut, can he?" Louis guesses, rolling his eyes. "It's not a big thing anyway, just a partial scholarship to the community college in Duluth."

A few months ago, he'd have been frustrated by Louis talking it down, acting like it's not a big deal. But Harry can see how he's glowing, especially when he flips down the sun visor and tosses Harry a thick envelope that'd been stuck up behind it. Harry wants to do something drastic, like tell Louis to keep driving until they get back to the ocean.

"I really," he starts, grasping for words. The envelope is heavy and real in his hands, and he can't stop grinning down at it. "I really can't believe you're going to start wearing baseball pants again when I'm off in fucking New York."

* * *

“When I was little,” Harry says, sleepyslow summer voice drifting up through the branches of the big magnolia in his front yard, “I stood in a fire ant bed right here in this exact spot.”

Louis’ mouth twitches into a smile. _Riiii-ight heer in this eehhgzayact spahhuht._

He lets his head loll against the branch he’s sprawled on, peeking down at Harry leaning against the trunk, crown of his head dappled in sunlight through the deep green shade of the waxy leaves.

“So you always been a dumb fuck then, huh, Styles?” he asks, his own voice coming out lazy and soft, smile curling the tone teasing.

Harry’s head tips back until they’re looking at each other upside down. His eyes are big, Louis thinks, big and green and happy. “I was five,” Harry drawls reproachfully.

If Louis dropped his arm down he could almost brush his fingers against Harry’s hair, almost.

“Well if you were only five,” Louis concedes, letting his arm slip so it dangles, burying his face in the crook of his other elbow. It’s only a moment before he feels Harry’s fingertips brush his, just a bit, just barely, almost. “Bet you only done that once.”

Harry’s fingers travel up his palm, his wrist, tickling light. Louis hums. Then Harry’s hand grips his forearm tight and _yanks_ , and Louis yelps, stomach dropping faster than his body when the force pulls him off the limb and sends him hurtling to the dirt.

Luckily, Harry’s body breaks his fall, and they both grunt at the same time, breaths knocked out.

“I’ll only do _you_ once,” Harry wheezes, struggling to get Louis’ elbows out of his ribs.

“Was this really worth making that stupid fucking joke?” Louis snaps, but he’s laughing, which hurts a bit around the stitch in his side, but it’s worth it for how Harry’s eyebrows draw together unhappily and his lips pout out. He digs his elbows in harder.

“If I knew you weighed a sack of bricks-”

“Like you ever carried a sack of bricks in your life-”

“Why would anyone carry a sack of bricks! That’s what wheelbarrows are for-”

“Ohhhh, Styles and his fancy yard tools-”

“It’s a wheelbarrow!”

“Boys.”

They stop their struggling, blinking up at Anne in her sundress and shades, and Gemma beside her, eyebrows raised high. Behind them, the Range Rover is loaded with bags- everything Harry and Gemma will need for the fall semester in New York. Louis' been trying not to look at it, but even when he does it doesn't feel too bad.

"We've got to leave in fifteen minutes, H," Gemma says, putting a hand on Anne's arm and leading her away towards the Range Rover. "So make it sappy and snappy."

Harry takes it to heart, pulling Louis up and nearly crushing him against his chest. It's a little hard to breathe, but Louis buries his face against Harry's shoulder anyway, committing the feeling to memory since it'll be a while before he gets it again. When Harry finally pushes him out to arms-length, he's got the most serious look on his face, almost cartoonishly so.

"You better call me, alright?" Harry says emphatically, hands holding Louis' face steady so Harry can stare very seriously into his eyes. "And you better answer my calls."

Louis tries to roll his eyes, but it's hard to look away from Harry comically scowling at him. "I'll probably be busy," he says, "being a baseball star and all. _You_ better answer my damn calls, how about that? Gonna be easy to get caught up in a big city like that, I'd guess." He keeps his voice light because he's not as nervous about it as he might've been, but he does still think of it from time to time.

"Get caught up enough to forget that you're somewhere down here wearing baseball pants?" Harry says dreamily, staring, wistful, somewhere past Louis' shoulder. "Never."

Louis kicks him in the shin, and they're still laughing when Harry kisses him goodbye while Gemma honks the horn of the Range Rover rhythmically in the background.

Watching the Range Rover drive off feels, strangely, like not much of a goodbye at all. Louis' had plenty of goodbyes and the one thing they've had in common is the nasty taste they leave behind. Watching Harry leave isn't like that at all, and maybe that has a little to do with how he can spot his own letterman jacket folded carefully on top of the pile of Harry's things in the backseat. How Harry'd promised to bring it back-

And he'd said it just like that- _I'll bring it back_ , not _I'll return it._

It's funny, how slick he thinks he is, too honest for his own good. 

And even if it had gone differently, even if it had ended up feeling a little too familiar, there'd still be a text from Niall telling him to come over and throw the ball around before his shoulder tightens back up, there'd still be an envelope full of scholarship information tucked in the sun visor of his truck, there'd still be his well-worn glove sitting out on the dashboard where it belongs, not tucked up under the seat like a secret.

And there's still that ridiculous scrapbook full of Harry's fancy handwriting, pictures of the two of them out in the woods. out on the water, those stupid weedy flowers pressed and dried between the pages. An honest-to-god _Good job!_ sticker right there on the front. Louis keeps it in his glovebox, safe but close. _I'll keep the stupid scrapbook until you bring back my letterman, how about that?_ Green eyes squinted against the sun, gold-flecked, laughing. _Sounds good to me._

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> well there is that done.


End file.
